noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A cave that was inhabited in the distant past, in particular by paleohumans
2. 2
   A formerly-open spelunk that has since filled back in but retains the overall structure as a kind of fossil

Etymology

From paleo- + cave.

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