COVE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Cove

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/koʊv/ Listen

noun

Cove n.

A retired nook; especially, a small, sheltered inlet, creek, or bay; a recess in the shore. "Vessels which were in readiness for him within secret coves and nooks."

A strip of prairie extending into woodland; also, a recess in the side of a mountain. (U.S.)

(Arch.)

(a)

A concave molding.

(b)

A member, whose section is a concave curve, used especially with regard to an inner roof or ceiling, as around a skylight.

Cove n. A boy or man of any age or station. (Slang) "There's a gentry cove here." "Now, look to it, coves, that all the beef and drink Be not filched from us."

verb

Cove v. t. (past & past part. coved; pres. part. coving) (Arch.) To arch over; to build in a hollow concave form; to make in the form of a cove. "The mosques and other buildings of the Arabians are rounded into domes and coved roofs."

Coved ceiling, a ceiling, the part of which next the wail is constructed in a cove.

Coved vault, a vault composed of four coves meeting in a central point, and therefore the reverse of a groined vault.

Cove v. t. To brood, cover, over, or sit over, as birds their eggs. (Obs.) "Not being able to cove or sit upon them (eggs), she (the female tortoise) bestoweth them in the gravel."

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Etymology of 'Cove'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Cove" Quotes from Famous Books

... smack in a cove about five miles higher up the coast than this; and it was our practice, in fine weather, to take advantage of the fifteen minutes' slack to push across the main channel of the Moskoe-stroem, far above ...

— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... Sound. Coast from thence to the Archipelago of the Recherche. Discovery of Lucky Bay and Thistle's Cove. The surrounding country, and islands of the Archipelago. Astronomical and nautical observations. Goose-Island Bay. A salt lake. Nautical observations. Coast from the Archipelago to the end of Nuyts' Land. Arrival in a bay of the unknown ...

— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders

... little wind along the shore, from Point Shutup towards Cape Forward; and about three o'clock in the afternoon we passed by the French ship, which, we saw in a little cove, about two leagues to the southward of Point Shutup. She had hauled her stern close into the woods, and we could see large piles of the wood which she had cut down, lying on each side of her; so that I made no doubt of her having been sent out to procure that necessary for their new settlement, ...

— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... this cove can fly with only one wing." Then he went, but returned and said: "There's no water in the bucket—Mother used the last drop to boil th' punkins," and renewed the fly-catching. Dad tried to spit, and was going to say something when Mother, half-way between the house and the ...

— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd

... us at last, and a proper old April we've 'ad, Though the cold snap as copped us at Easter made 'oliday makers feel mad. Rum cove that old Clerk o' the Weather; seems somehow to take a delight In mucking Bank 'Oliday biz; seems as though it was ...

— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various

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