cove

¹ American  

[kohv] / koʊv /

noun

1. a small indentation or recess in the shoreline of a sea, lake, or river.

2. a sheltered nook.

3. a hollow or recess in a mountain; cave; cavern.

4. a narrow pass between woods or hills.

5. a sheltered area between woods or hills.

6. Architecture.

   1. a concave surface or molding.

   2. a concave surface forming part of a ceiling at its edge so as to eliminate the usual interior angle between the wall and ceiling.

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verb (used with or without object)

coved, coving

1. to make or become a cove.

cove ² American  

[kohv] / koʊv /

noun

1. British Slang. a person; fellow.

2. Australian Slang. a manager, especially of a sheep station.

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cove ¹ British  

/ kəʊv /

noun

1. a small bay or inlet, usually between rocky headlands

2. a narrow cavern formed in the sides of cliffs, mountains, etc, usually by erosion

3. a sheltered place

4. Also called: coving. architect a concave curved surface between the wall and ceiling of a room

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verb

1. (tr) to form an architectural cove in

cove ² British  

/ kəʊv /

noun

1. old-fashioned a fellow; chap

2. history an overseer of convict labourers

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Etymology

Origin of cove¹

First recorded before 900; Middle English; Old English cofa “cave, den, closet”; cognate with Old Norse kofi “hut,” Greek gýpē “cave”

Origin of cove²

First recorded in 1560–70; of uncertain origin; perhaps from Romani kova “creature, thing, person”

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Explanation

A cove is a small, sheltered part of an ocean's coast. A cove can be a good place to put a sea kayak in the water and start paddling along the shore. A cove is basically the same thing as a "bay," but smaller. Coves are protected coastal areas affected by tides and connected to the open sea by a narrow entrance. The water in a cove is calmer than the open ocean, and the cove itself is often oval or circular in shape. The earliest meaning of cove was "den or cave," and later "small bay," probably influenced by a Scottish meaning of the word, "hollow place in coastal rocks."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

cove coved coving

Diablo Canyon uses 2.5 billion gallons of ocean water for cooling each day, discharging hot water directly into the nearby cove.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 16, 2026

We headed not for an orchard but to an island estate in downeast Maine where apple trees overlook a quiet cove.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 10, 2025

The croc was independent and apparently a “confirmed bachelor,” a characteristic he made clear “during his earlier years at a crocodile farm,” the cove said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 23, 2024

There have been a number of similar rockfalls at the same cove, including a major landslip earlier this year, which occurred after days of heavy rainfall.

From BBC ● Mar. 3, 2024

“Better not be a squirrel or something stupid like that,” I grumbled as I swung the boat toward the cove.

From "Red Kayak" by Priscilla Cummings

Other areas include a country-style chef's kitchen with a wide center island, a den and a lavish master suite with coved ceilings and rows of picture windows.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 26, 2015

Though it is state-of-the-art, the gallery looks splendidly 19th-century, with a coved ceiling and an overhead window that lets daylight in.

From Economist ● Sep. 18, 2014

There are 26 rooms featuring coved ceilings, cornices and natural light from skylights in 18 of the galleries.

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 15, 2012

This led by the late 1960s to works known as light encasements, squares of monochrome plastic with neon lights embedded along the edges, intended to be installed in white rooms with coved corners.

From New York Times ● Jan. 15, 2012

And an eye from Somerset looks kindly at this outlandish attempt to make a kind of coved roof, and to paint it withal.

From Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine by William Holden Hutton

Among those who left their mark are a group believed to have worked on the coving in 1968 and the earliest, a plasterer, T Harwood whose signature is dated 1843.

From BBC ● Dec. 3, 2025

This day of proceedings was characterized by those coving the trial as tense, as LaPierre repeatedly "tried to insert justifications for expenditures which Sheehan elicited in his questions."

From Salon ● Apr. 9, 2021

I like to think the old face is still underneath like a piece of buried Victorian coving, snarling and bantering to itself behind the immobile corporate façade.

From The Guardian ● Apr. 2, 2010

In the bratini and kovsh the bulging form of ornament, the coving up of the bottoms of the bowls, and the use of twisted lobes are very common.

From Russia As Seen and Described by Famous Writers by Esther Singleton

As at Hope Lodge a broad plaster coving is the principal feature of the simple cornice.

From The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia by Frank Cousins

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