spelunking means The practice or hobby of exploring underground caverns. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 88 out of 100.
Why this word is great
SPELUNKING — [Noun] The recreational practice of exploring and navigating caves and underground caverns. From spelunk (a back-formation from spelunker, meaning 'cave explorer') + -ing (suffix forming nouns of action). The word spelunker ultimately derives from Latin spelunca ('cave'), from Ancient Greek σπῆλυγξ (spêlynx, 'cave'). Unlike speleology (which dissects a cave's mineral history and resident biota with clinical care) or the more technical modern term caving, spelunking is a word of amateur pilgrimage, of mud and wonder. It is the gritty scrape of a palm against a cool, damp wall; the animal scent of wet limestone and ancient, undisturbed air; the profound, body-warming heat of a tight squeeze that yields to a vast, silent chamber. To spelunk is to perform a small, voluntary reversal of human progress, leaving the lit world behind to remember what it is to be merely a body in the belly of the earth.
noun
- The practice or hobby of exploring underground caverns.“In the great myths, the adventures are external, even when they involve such metaphorical spelunkings as the voyage into the underworld.”