Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A type of urban explorer who illegally visits the ancient "catacombs" (actually ancient quarries linked by tunnels) beneath Paris.
  • noun by extension Any individual who explores subterranean quarries, mines, or catacombs.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French cataphile

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Examples

  • To be a cataphile, it helps to have feline nerves.

    NPR Topics: News 2011

  • "Put your feet like mine," our cataphile offered, adjusting his headlamp.

    NPR Topics: News 2011

  • Suddenly, there was singing and shouting and laughing in the distance: We had stepped into the world of cataphile art.

    NPR Topics: News 2011

  • "Put your feet like mine," our cataphile offered, adjusting his headlamp.

    NPR Topics: News 2011

  • "Put your feet like mine," our cataphile offered, adjusting his headlamp.

    NPR Topics: News 2011

  • Suddenly, there was singing and shouting and laughing in the distance: We had stepped into the world of cataphile art.

    NPR Topics: News 2011

  • To be a cataphile, it helps to have feline nerves.

    NPR Topics: News 2011

  • To be a cataphile, it helps to have feline nerves.

    NPR Topics: News 2011

  • Suddenly, there was singing and shouting and laughing in the distance: We had stepped into the world of cataphile art.

    NPR Topics: News 2011

  • For most of the past decade, a group of dedicated “cataphiles”—Parisians who trawl the underground regularly, building, exploring, and forming their own vibrant subculture—have been throwing their own underground version of Carnival, literally underground.

    Paris souterrain The Editors 2026

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