hive
Americannoun
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hives
plural
verb (used with object)
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hives,
present (3rd person singular)
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hived,
past participle, past
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hiving
present participle
-
to gather into or cause to enter a hive.
-
to shelter as in a hive.
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to store up in a hive.
-
to store or lay away for future use or enjoyment.
verb (used without object)
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hives,
present (3rd person singular)
-
hived,
past participle, past
-
hiving
present participle
-
(of bees) to enter a hive.
-
to live together in or as in a hive.
verb phrase
noun
-
a structure in which social bees live and rear their young
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a colony of social bees
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a place showing signs of great industry (esp in the phrase a hive of activity )
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a teeming crowd; multitude
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an object in the form of a hive
verb
-
to cause (bees) to collect or (of bees) to collect inside a hive
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to live or cause to live in or as if in a hive
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(tr) (of bees) to store (honey, pollen, etc) in the hive
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(tr; often foll by up or away) to store, esp for future use
he used to hive away a small sum every week
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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hivesimple
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hivessimple
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have hivedperfect
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has hivedperfect
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am hivingprogressive
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are hivingprogressive
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is hivingprogressive
-
have been hivingperfect progressive
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has been hivingperfect progressive
Past
-
hivedsimple
-
had hivedperfect
-
was hivingprogressive
-
were hivingprogressive
-
had been hivingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of hive
First recorded before 900; Middle English; Old English hȳf; akin to Old Norse hūfr “ship's hull,” Latin cūpa “vat”
Explanation
A hive can be a home for bees. It’s also a whole bunch of something moving around — like a hive of eager students — which is related to the fact that so many bees live in a hive. The word hive is most recognizable as a place where bees live, but it can be a verb that means to move together as one, like a swarm of bees. It can also describe storing a lot of things in a confined space, the way bees are packed into a hive. You might hive your stamp collection in boxes in the attic, but if bees have built a hive in the eaves you won't be able to get to them.
Vocabulary lists containing hive
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Johnson & Johnson JNJ 0.88%increase; up pointing triangle is “leaning” toward spinning out the hips-and-knees business that the company has been looking to hive off, Chief Financial Officer Joseph Wolk said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 13, 2026
A third hive was added last year, with five members of staff now trained to look after them.
From BBC ● Oct. 4, 2026
The market and adjacent bridge hit in Monday's bombardment had become a hive of trading activity since civil war broke out in Myanmar following a 2021 military coup.
From Barron's ● Sep. 29, 2026
Playing Carol Sturka, a sad woman forced to save the world from happiness and hive mind, Seehorn had the role of a lifetime and ran with it.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 15, 2026
When the time for swarming comes, and the old queen prepares to leave with her part of the population, it is as though the hive were involved in mitosis.
From "The Lives of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas
If I err, and I do, my legs sometimes itch so fiercely they feel on fire and I break out in hives.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 4, 2026
Two hives were installed in 2021 and a third was set up last year.
From BBC ● Oct. 4, 2026
These computing hives generate data, jobs, income, wealth and not much else.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
Al-Dabba himself lost some 400 hives, which he had kept in agricultural lands east of Gaza City.
From Barron's ● Aug. 7, 2026
The light was poor but Toomer interpreted the gaits of the other three men and could tell the gauge of each shotgun as they passed between the hives.
From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy
He hived off the employee from the investigation, but the discovery underlined the stakes.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 20, 2022
These were done using routine commercially available lab equipment, or were hived off to other facilities.
From Nature ● May 13, 2018
The Sun is an underdog too, a loss-making has-been hived off by its parent company to make way for the all-conquering Daily Mirror.
From Economist ● Jul. 6, 2017
Now that most work no longer needs to be hived off into industrial estates, attempting to design a city that blends the residential and the workplace may help cut commutes.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 5, 2017
“I used the funnel to drop them in a swarm box,” she said, “then I hived them again.”
From "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd
Dr Jash says he also told her that they may even have to perform an invasive surgery which would involve hiving off a part of her lung.
From BBC ● Apr. 26, 2024
Men spilled over each other, hiving off into small groups to drink.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 11, 2024
Under the Minerva project, TIM would retain the network while hiving off its services operations and its Brazil-listed unit.
From Reuters ● Nov. 8, 2022
Volkswagen said it was considering hiving off its profitable Porsche division into a separate company with its own stock listing.
From New York Times ● Feb. 22, 2022
Exhausting thought, And hiving wisdom with each studious year.
From Familiar Quotations A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs Traced to Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature by John Bartlett
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
