Noun: lava
Sample Sentences
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Marine iguanas line the shores of the islands, and are usually seen sprawled over lava rocks near the sea. [1991, Martha Holmes, Sea Trek, BBC Books, page 44:]
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I leant forward to see him better, and a piece of lava, detached by my hand, went pattering down the slope. [1896, H.G. Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau, Stone & Kimball, page 48:]
Nouns inflected like lava
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
From Italian, from Neapolitan and Sicilian lava (“lava; downpour overflowing the streets”), likely from Latin lābēs (“a fall; a collapse; subsidence”); compare lābīna (“landslide”). A supposed relation with lavare (“to wash”) is now widely discredited, nor is there probably any relation with Arabic لابة (lāba, “black volcanic rock”). Alternatively, the Romance words are connected with Provençal lavo, lauvo (“flat stone”), from a Vulgar Latin source borrowed from a Celtic language such as Gaulish *lawā, but ultimately of obscure origin; see Proto-Celtic *līwos for details. See: Latin Nouns '
lābēs'.
Verbs referencing "lava"
German Nouns
Lava.