cove

[kohv]

noun

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

a sheltered nook.

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

a narrow pass between woods or hills.

a sheltered area between woods or hills.

Architecture.

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

verb (used with or without object), coved, cov·ing.

to make or become a cove.

Nearby words

Origin of cove

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

Can be confusedbay cove gulf inlet

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for coved

The nave, too, is covered with a wooden roof, a kind of coved roof with tie-beams.
Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine|Edward A. Freeman
Its ceiling, coved like the other, seemed made of some self-radiating substance from which came both light and heat.
The Blind Spot|Austin Hall
On the coved portion of it, within the shields, are written the subjects of the books on the shelves beneath.
The Care of Books|John Willis Clark
At the end is a gallery or balcony for the musicians, which on its coved front has a florid coat of arms of foreign heraldry.
The Lost Stradivarius|John Meade Falkner

These walls were painted in encaustic, corresponding with the coved ceiling, which was richly adorned in the same fashion.
Tancred|Benjamin Disraeli

British Dictionary definitions for coved

cove

noun

a small bay or inlet, usually between rocky headlands

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

a sheltered place

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

verb

(tr) to form an architectural cove in

Word Origin for cove

Old English cofa; related to Old Norse kofi, Old High German kubisi tent

cove

noun

old-fashioned, slang, British and Australian a fellow; chap

Australian history an overseer of convict labourers

Word Origin for cove

C16: probably from Romany kova thing, person

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for coved

cove

n.1

early 14c., "den, cave," from Old English cofa "small chamber, cell," from Proto-Germanic *kubon (cf. Old High German kubisi "tent, hut," German Koben "pigsty," Old Norse kofi "hut, shed"). Extension of meaning to "small bay" is 1580s, apparently via Scottish dialectal meaning "small hollow place in coastal rocks" (a survival of an Old English secondary sense).

cove

n.2

"fellow, chap," slang from at least 1560s, said to be from Romany (Gypsy) cova "that man."