cove.
A hollow in a rock; a cave or cavern.
Meaning & usage
A hollow in a rock; a cave or cavern.
A concave vault or archway, especially the arch of a ceiling.
A small coastal inlet, especially one having high cliffs protecting vessels from prevailing winds; bight.
A strip of prairie extending into woodland.
A recess or sheltered area on the slopes of a mountain.
The wooden roof of the stern gallery of an old sailing warship.
A thin line, sometimes gilded, along a yacht's strake below deck level.
A valley between two ridges, especially one that, opening to the south and east, is protected by ridges on the north and west from common winter storm tracks.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English cove, from Old English cofa (“chamber; den”), from Proto-West Germanic *kobō, from Proto-Germanic *kubô. Cognate with Dutch koof (“cove”), German Low German Koov (“small room”), German Koben (“nook, shed”), Icelandic kofi (“hut, shack”). This word has probably survived as long as it has due to its coincidental phonetic resemblance to the unrelated word English cave. Also unrelated to Spanish cueva, which itself is a cognate of cave.
To arch over; to build in a hollow concave form; to make in the form of a cove.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English cove, from Old English cofa (“chamber; den”), from Proto-West Germanic *kobō, from Proto-Germanic *kubô. Cognate with Dutch koof (“cove”), German Low German Koov (“small room”), German Koben (“nook, shed”), Icelandic kofi (“hut, shack”). This word has probably survived as long as it has due to its coincidental phonetic resemblance to the unrelated word English cave. Also unrelated to Spanish cueva, which itself is a cognate of cave.
Man; fellow.
Friend; mate.
Where this word comes from
Attested in Britain a. 1570, from Romani kodo (“this one, him”, pronounced /koðo/, ultimately undergoing th-fronting to /kov/ in English), or perhaps directly from Romani kova (“that person”).
Of a bird or other animal: to brood, cover, incubate, or sit over (eggs).
Where this word comes from
Borrowed from French couver, from Old French cover (“to hatch (eggs)”), from Latin cubāre (“to lie down, recline; to incubate; to be broody”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱewb- (“to lie down”). Cognates * Italian covare
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.