Etymograph

English

lava

Lava comes from nap,scn lava.

  1. nap,scnmodernlava
  2. Englishearliest quotation 1896same form

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed

Earlier history uncertain.

Lineage

  1. nap,scnmodernlava
  2. Englishearliest quotation 1896same form

Earliest quotation: 1896, H.G. Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau: “I leant forward to see him better, and a…”

The story

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.disputed Scholars disagree here; the competing view is quoted as the source gives it.

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *(s)leh₂b- ‘to hang loosely, be weak’

relapse, elapse, 4 more

through Latin lābor ‘to waver, fall’

labour, collaboration, laboratory, collapse, elaborate, lapse, laborious, labile, 10 more

Today it means

noun The molten rock ejected by a volcano from a vent such as a crater or fissure; magma that has breached the surface of the earth.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / nap,scn lava / lava

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