Cave-in

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The act of something collapsing or caving in.

    "We were warned away from the rickety old mine because of the danger of cave-ins."

  2. 2
    The location where something has caved in.

    "We couldn't get past the cave-in blocking the tunnel."

  3. 3
    The act of relenting. idiomatic

    "It was a cave-in, but I let my child have a candy to shut her up."

Verb
  1. 1
    Misspelling of cave in. alt-of, misspelling

Synonyms

All synonyms
collapserockfallacquiescenceblockagebreakagebreakdown

Example

More examples

"Tom was inside the mine when the cave-in occurred."

Etymology

Deverbal from cave in.

More for "cave-in"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.