Nave

Pronunciation

• enPR: nāv, IPA: /neɪv/
• Rhymes: -eɪv
• Homophones: knave

Ultimately from Latin nāvis, via a Romance source.

Full definition of nave

Noun

1. (architecture) The middle or body of a church, extending from the transepts to the principal entrances.
• 1918, W. B. Maxwell, The Mirror and the Lamp Chapter 5, Then everybody once more knelt, and soon the blessing was pronounced. The choir and the clergy trooped out slowly, …, down the nave to the western door. … At a seemingly immense distance the surpliced group stopped to say the last prayer.

From Old English nafu, from Proto-Germanic *nabō (compare Dutch naaf, German Nabe), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃nobh ("navel") (compare Latin umbō ("shield boss"), Latvian naba, Sanskrit (nābha)).

Noun

1. A hub of a wheel.
• --William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2'Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! All you gods,In general synod take away her power;Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven...
2. (obsolete) The navel.
• William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act I, scene 1:Till he faced the slave;/Which ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,/Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps,/And fix'd his head upon our battlements

Related terms

• navel

Anagrams

• aven
• Evan
• Neva
• vane