duck

From Middle English ducken, duken, douken (“to duck, plunge under water, submerge”), from Old English *dūcan (“to dip, dive, duck”), from Proto-West Germanic *dūkan, from Proto-Germanic *dūkaną (“to dip, dive, bend down, stoop, duck”), probably from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewb- (“deep, hollow”) (whence Proto-Germanic *dūbaną (“to dive”)).
Cognates
Related to Scots dulk (“to duck”), Middle Dutch ducken (“to duck”), Low German ducken (“to duck”), German ducken (“to duck”), Danish dukke, dykke (“to dive”). Related also to Scots dook, douk (“to bathe, drench, soak, baptise”), West Frisian dûke (“to plunge, dive”), Dutch duiken (“to dive, plunge, duck”), Low German duken (“to duck, dive, stoop”), German tauchen (“to dive, plunge, immerse, duck”), Swedish dyka (“to dive, submerge”).

cog

(caving) A cave passage containing water with low, or no, airspace.


room

en-noun

room (countable and uncountable, plural rooms)

→ Japanese: ルーム (rūmu)

→ Kikuyu: rumu

→ Maori: rūma

Etymology tree
Proto-West Germanic *rūm
Old English rūm
Middle English roum
English room
From Middle English roum, from Old English rūm (“room, space”), from Proto-West Germanic *rūm (“room”), from Proto-Germanic *rūmą (“room”), from Proto-Indo-European *rewh₁- (“free space”).
Cognate with Low German Ruum, Dutch ruimte (“space”) and Dutch ruim (“cargo load”), German Raum (“space, interior space”), Danish rum (“space, locality”), Norwegian rom (“space”), Swedish rum (“space, location”), and also with Latin rūs (“country, field, farm”) through Indo-European. More at rural.
In the standard language, it is ostensibly an exception to the Great Vowel Shift, which otherwise would have produced the pronunciation /ɹaʊm/, but /aʊ/ does not occur before noncoronal consonants in standard Modern English native vocabulary. The pronunciation /ɹaʊm/ does occur in, for example, Lancashire.

inh

rum (/ɹʊm/) (without the foot-strut split)

nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs

(caving) A portion of a cave that is wider than a passage.

huone

spelunking: portion of a cave wider than a passage


passage

Borrowed into Middle English from Old French passage, from passer (“to pass”).

(caving) An underground cavity, formed by water or falling rocks, which is much longer than it is wide.


pitch

From Middle English picchen, pycchen (“to thrust in, fasten, settle”), from Old English *piċċan, from Proto-West Germanic *pikkijan, a variant of Proto-West Germanic *pikkōn (“to pick, peck”), whence Middle English pikken, picken (“to pick, pierce”), modern English pick.

nyökkääminen

rotation angle about the transverse axis

килово клатене

nautical: measure of extent to which a vessel's bow and stern go up and down

The entrance pitch requires 30 metres of rope.

(caving) A vertical cave passage, only negotiable by using rope or ladders.


squeeze

From earlier squize, squise (whence also dialectal English squizzen and squeege), first attested around 1600, further origin uncertain; probably an alteration of quease (which is attested since 1550), from Middle English queisen (“to squeeze”), from Old English cwēsan, cwȳsan (“to crush, squeeze”), itself also of unknown origin, perhaps imitative (compare Swedish qväsa, kväsa (“to squeeze, bruise, crush; quell”), Dutch kwetsen (“to injure, hurt”), German quetschen (“to squeeze”)). Or, a blend of obsolete squiss (“to squeeze”) (whence also squash and squish) with quease. Compare also French esquicher from Old Occitan esquichar (“to press, squeeze”).
The slang expression "to put the squeeze on (someone or something)", meaning "to exert influence", is from 1711. The baseball term "squeeze play" is first recorded 1905. "Main squeeze" ("most important person") is attested from 1896, the specific meaning "one's sweetheart, lover" is attested in 1970s.
The nonstandard strong forms squoze and squozen, attested dialectally since at least the mid-19th century, are by analogy with freeze.

It was a tight squeeze, but I got through to the next section of the cave.

The most notorious squeezes have names: the Gun Barrel, Jam Crack, the Electric Armpit Crawl, Devil's Pinch.

2003, Barbara Hurd, “The Squeeze”, in Entering the Stone: On Caves and Feeling through the Dark, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Company, →ISBN, page 11:

Prior to going back out to Mystery Cave again we spent a lot of time preparing. We made a squeeze box, which is a wooden box the opening of which can be adjusted in size. We could then crawl through the opening and measure to see how tight of a squeeze we could fit through.

2016, Diego Rodriguez, The Caver: Dig ... But Not to Far, Munich: BookRix, →ISBN:

(caving) A traversal of a narrow passage.


cave

From Middle English cave, borrowed from Old French cave, from Latin cava (“cavity”), from cavus (“hollow”). Cognate with Tocharian B kor (“throat”), Albanian cup (“odd, uneven”), Ancient Greek κύαρ (kúar, “eye of needle, earhole”), Old Armenian սոր (sor, “hole”), Sanskrit शून्य (śūnya, “empty, barren, zero”). Displaced native Old English sċræf. More at cavum, cavus and cage.

It was not strictly a cave, but a narrow fissure in the rock.

(caving) A naturally-occurring cavity in bedrock which is large enough to be entered by an adult.

luola

caving: naturally-occurring cavity large enough to be entered by an adult


rack

From Middle English rakke, rekke, from Middle Dutch rac, recke, rec (Dutch rek), see rekken.

rappel rack

abseil rack

(climbing, caving) A friction device for abseiling, consisting of a frame with five or more metal bars, around which the rope is threaded.


denivelation

(caving) the difference in level (depth) between two parts of a cave system, usually the highest and lowest known point. depth is the distance between the cave entrance and the lowest known point reached. denivelation is less than or equal to depth


aven

From Occitan avenc, from Gaulish *abonā (“river”), from Proto-Celtic *abū (“river”). Compare Breton aven, avon.

(geology, caving) pit cave, pit (natural cave with predominantly vertical shafts)


thrutch

en-verb

thrutch (third-person singular simple present thrutches, present participle thrutching, simple past and past participle thrutched)

thrutches (present singular third-person)
thrutching (participle present)
thrutched (participle past)
thrutched (past)

From Middle English thrucchen (“to push, rush”), from Old English þryċċan (“to push, press, trample on, crush”), from Proto-West Germanic *þrukkijan, from Proto-Germanic *þrukkijaną (“to press”). Cognate with West Frisian drukke (“to press”), Dutch drukken (“to press, squeeze”), German drücken (“to press, push, squeeze”), Swedish trycka (“to press, push, squeeze”).

cog

I thrutched up the final crack to a small pinnacle.

(caving, climbing) To push, press, or squeeze into a place; move sideways or vertically in an upright position by wriggling the body against opposing rock surfaces. Compare chimney.


thrutch

(caving, climbing) An obstacle overcome by thrutching; an act of thrutching (See verb #5)


pieczara

Borrowed from Old East Slavic печера (pečera).


squeeze box

At caving conventions aboveground, cavers often squirrel themselves through adjustable wooden "squeeze boxes" in good-natured competitions. In the safety of this controlled setting, cavers may push their capacities far beyond what they might hazard underground; […] A very slender woman's tightest squeeze may be defined by the width of her skull turned sideways. Some women thus emerge from squeeze boxes, triumphant, with mirrored abrasions over their cheekbones.

1998 July, Andrew Todhunter, “Dark Passage: Descending into the Depths of California’s Longest Known Cave”, in The Atlantic Monthly, volume 282, number 1, archived from the original on 21 September 2015, pages 90–94; reprinted in Dangerous Games: Ice Climbing, Storm Kayaking, and other Adventures from the Extreme Edge of Sports, 1st Anchor Books edition, New York, N.Y.: Anchor Books, Random House, November 2001, pages 61–62

The most notorious squeezes have names: the Gun Barrel, Jam Crack, the Electric Armpit Crawl, Devil's Pinch. You can even train for them by buying a product called a Squeeze Box. It's essentially a play torture chamber for cavers, a wooden box, about thirty by thirty inches, open on the two ends. You set it up in your living room, get down on your hands and knees, and crawl through it. No problem. But the box has adjustable sides and top. You loosen the bolts, lower the lid, slide the sides closer, crawl through again. […] Though a Squeeze Box may be good practice for learning how to squinch through small places, doing it on your living room carpet, […] just doesn't duplicate what causes the panic.

(caving) A box with an adjustable opening used by cavers to practise crawling through tight spaces.


figure of eight

en-noun

figure of eight (plural figures of eight)

(climbing, caving) A device for abseiling, so-called for its shape.


syfon

lewarek (diminutive)
syfon (nominative singular)
syfony (nominative plural)
syfonu (genitive singular)
syfonów (genitive plural)
syfonowi (dative singular)
syfonom (dative plural)
syfon (accusative singular)
syfony (accusative plural)
syfonem (instrumental singular)
syfonami (instrumental plural)
syfonie (locative singular)
syfonach (locative plural)
syfonie (singular vocative)
syfony (plural vocative)

Borrowed from French siphon, from Middle French siphon, from Old French sifon, from Latin sīphō, from Ancient Greek σίφων (síphōn).

(caving, hydrology) siphon, sump (completely flooded cave passage)