Volcano

How to spell volcano

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce volcano

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does volcano mean?

1. nounA mountain or vent in the earth's crust through which molten rock, ash, and gas erupt.

Volcano in a sentence

• The dormant volcano had not erupted in living memory.

• Scientists monitor the volcano for warning tremors before an eruption.

Where does volcano come from?

Language of origin: Italian

Volcano travelled into English from Italian volcano, itself drawn from the Latin Vulcanus, the name of the Roman god of fire and metalworking. According to Roman belief, Vulcan kept his forge beneath the earth, and the smoke and flame seen rising from burning mountains were taken as signs of his workshop, so his name became attached to those mountains themselves. Sicily's Mount Etna and the small island of Vulcano off its coast were the classic examples that fixed the association. English picked the word up in the early 1600s, mostly through Italian sailors and travellers describing the fiery peaks of the Mediterranean. The same divine name lives on in the words 'vulcanise' (the heat treatment of rubber) and 'volcanic', which keeps the original Latin 'a' that the noun spelling preserves.

How the word is built

• volcan- (from Latin Vulcanus, the Roman fire god)
• -o (Italian noun ending)