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

It marked the second death this summer at Crescent Bay Beach, a popular quarter-mile cove in Laguna Beach that drawsin bodysurfers and divers.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 27, 2026

From its Bahrain base overlooking a manicured cove in Manama, Vitol over decades built a big business supplying Persian Gulf oil to Asia.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 12, 2026

But south of the tunnel, Highway 1 still parallels a stretch of towering cliffs overlooking a sheltered cove.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 25, 2026

Kenzie said his belongings had been found by police and coastguard at a cove accessed by boat.

From BBC ● Nov. 2, 2024

Cliffs rose eighty feet high on either side of the cove, but at the southwest corner they spied a rocky beach where they could haul out.

From "Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World" by Jennifer Armstrong

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

The saloon was hung with blue satin, and adorned with brilliant mirrors: its coved ceiling was richly painted, and its furniture became the rest of its decorations.

From Sybil, or the Two Nations by Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield

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

I think I shoud some marshas helen a pray the Drom and coving the collas out of the pub. 

From Gipsy Life being an account of our Gipsies and their children, with suggestions for their improvement by George Smith

The couch was overturned, with its coving and pillows strewn about.

From Astounding Stories, July, 1931 by Various

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