Earth & SkyGreek → English
Grotto
/ˈɡrɒtoʊ/noun
A small cave, natural or made, often used as a shrine or garden feature.
The Greek roots
κρύπτη
krýptē
vault, hidden passage
Literally: “hidden place”
Follow a root:κρύπτη3 words
The story of the word
Grotto and crypt are one Greek word that came by two roads. κρύπτη, a covered passage, from κρύπτειν, to hide, entered Latin as crypta and then went down the spoken Italian line, softening to grotta, which English borrowed around 1610 for garden follies and seaside caves. Crypt came straight from the Latin books instead, which is why the church cellar and the shell-lined grotto sound unrelated.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Italian → English
- First recorded
- 1610s
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
cryptcrypticcryptographyapocrypha
In a sentence
The eighteenth-century garden still has its shell grotto, lit by one hole in the roof.
Pilgrims queue all afternoon at the grotto.