Dictionaries › English

grotto

Pronunciation: /ˈɡɹɒt.əʊ/

The English word “grotto” has 6 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A small cave.
  2. An artificial cavern-like retreat.
  3. A Marian shrine, usually built in a cavern-like structure.
  4. A local organization of cavers that typically organizes trips to caves and provides information and training for caving; a caving club.
  5. A secretive name for a local group of underground Satanists.
  6. A garden or roadside shrine with a small cave containing a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary (usually Our Lady of Lourdes and sometimes paired with a water feature)

Etymology

From Italian grotta, from Vulgar Latin grupta, from Classical Latin crypta. Doublet of crypt. The Philippine sense is from the holy cave in Lourdes, France.

Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “grotto” there

More English words

About this dictionary

The English dictionary on Glottosphere has 650,529 entries with a page. Browse the English dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.