Word.ws English Dictionary

cavel

UK/kˈe͡ɪvə͡l/

cavel noun: a gag. Also the alternative form of kevel.

Noun (1)

cavel (plural cavels)

  1. (obsolete) A gag.
  2. (dialectal) A horse's bit.

Noun (2)

cavel (plural cavels)

  1. (dialectal, obsolete) The stick or runestaff used in casting lots; a lot.
  2. (dialectal, obsolete) A part, share, lot.
  3. (dialectal, obsolete) A parcel or allotment of land.

Proper noun capitalized: Cavel

Cavel (plural Cavels)

  1. A surname.

Also used as

cavel is also the alternative form of kevel.

Forms of cavel

Noun
pluralcavels
alternative formcavil
alternative formkavil
alternative formkevel
alternative formkevil
Proper noun
pluralCavels

Origin of cavel

From Middle English *kavel, kevel, from Old English cæfl (“gag, bit, muzzle”), possibly from or akin to Old Norse kafli, kefli (“a piece of wood, gag”).

See kevel.

From Middle English cavel, kavell, kevell, from Old Norse kafl, kafli (“long, round piece of wood, staff”), from Proto-Germanic *kablô, *kablaz. Compare also Middle Dutch kāvelen (“to draw lots, a lot”), kavele (“fate, lottery”), modern Dutch kavel (“lot, plot of land”), dialectal German Kabel.

Questions about cavel

What does cavel mean?
Cavel means a gag.
What part of speech is cavel?
Cavel can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce cavel?
Cavel is pronounced /kˈe͡ɪvə͡l/ (UK).
What is the plural of cavel?
The plural of cavel is cavels.

Words near cavel in the dictionary

  1. cavefishes
  2. caveful
  3. cavefuls
  4. cavegirl
  5. cavegirls
  6. cavel
  7. caveless
  8. cavelet
  9. cavelets
  10. cavelike
  11. Cavell

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cavel (page history and authors); Cavel (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “cavel.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cavel. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.