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vault

Pronunciation: /vɒlt/

The English word “vault” has 20 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. An arched masonry structure supporting and forming a ceiling, whether freestanding or forming part of a larger building.
  2. Any arched ceiling or roof.
  3. Anything resembling such a downward-facing concave structure, particularly caves and the sky or firmament.
  4. The space covered by an arched roof, particularly underground rooms and (Christianity, obsolete) church crypts.
  5. Any cellar or underground storeroom.
  6. Any burial chamber, particularly those underground.
  7. The secure room or rooms in or below a bank used to store currency and other valuables; similar rooms in other settings.
  8. Any archive of past content.
  9. An encrypted digital archive.
  10. A membraneless organelle found in most eukaryotic cells first identified in 1986.
  11. An underground or covered conduit for water or waste; a drain; a sewer.
  12. An underground or covered reservoir for water or waste; a cistern; a cesspit.
  13. A room employing a cesspit or sewer: an outhouse; a lavatory.
  14. An act of vaulting, formerly (chiefly) by deer; a leap or jump.
  15. A piece of apparatus used for performing jumps.
  16. A gymnastic movement performed on this apparatus.

verb

  1. To build as, or cover with a vault.
  2. To store in a vault.
  3. To remove (an item, character, etc.) from a video game in an update.
  4. To jump or leap over with a hand and/or foot on the item for support.

Etymology

From Middle English vaute, vowte, from Old French volte (modern voûte), from Vulgar Latin *volta < *volvita or *volŭta, a regularization of Latin volūta (compare modern volute (“spire”)), the past participle of volvere (“roll, turn”). Cognate with Spanish vuelta (“turn”) and Portuguese volta ("turn"). Doublet of volute. Displaced native Old English hwealf.

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