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cove

Pronunciation: /kəʊv/

The English word “cove” has 12 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A hollow in a rock; a cave or cavern.
  2. A concave vault or archway, especially the arch of a ceiling.
  3. A small coastal inlet, especially one having high cliffs protecting vessels from prevailing winds; bight.
  4. A strip of prairie extending into woodland.
  5. A recess or sheltered area on the slopes of a mountain.
  6. The wooden roof of the stern gallery of an old sailing warship.
  7. A thin line, sometimes gilded, along a yacht's strake below deck level.
  8. 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.
  9. Man; fellow.
  10. Friend; mate.

verb

  1. To arch over; to build in a hollow concave form; to make in the form of a cove.
  2. Of a bird or other animal: to brood, cover, incubate, or sit over (eggs).

Etymology

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…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.