Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A small sheltered bay in the shoreline of a sea, river, or lake.
  • noun A recess or small valley in the side of a mountain.
  • noun A cave or cavern.
  • noun A narrow gap or pass between hills or woods.
  • noun A concave molding.
  • noun A concave surface forming a junction between a ceiling and a wall.
  • transitive verb To make in an inward curving form.
  • noun A fellow; a man.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A man; a person; a fellow: generally preceded by some adjective: as, an old cove; a rum cove; a flash cove, etc.
  • noun A small inlet, creek, or bay; a recess or nook in the shore of any considerable body of water.
  • noun Hence A hollow, nook, or recess in a mountain, or among mountains.
  • noun In architecture, a concavity; any kind of concave molding; the hollow of a vault.
  • noun In ship-building, a curved or arched molding at the bottom of the taffrail. An elliptical molding above it was called the arch of the cove.
  • To brood, cover, or sit over.
  • To arch over.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Slang A boy or man of any age or station.
  • noun A retired nook; especially, a small, sheltered inlet, creek, or bay; a recess in the shore.
  • noun U.S. A strip of prairie extending into woodland; also, a recess in the side of a mountain.
  • noun A concave molding.
  • noun A member, whose section is a concave curve, used especially with regard to an inner roof or ceiling, as around a skylight.
  • transitive verb (Arch.) To arch over; to build in a hollow concave form; to make in the form of a cove.
  • transitive verb a ceiling, the part of which next the wail is constructed in a cove.
  • transitive verb a vault composed of four coves meeting in a central point, and therefore the reverse of a groined vault.
  • transitive verb obsolete To brood, cover, over, or sit over, as birds their eggs.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun UK A fellow; a man.
  • noun Australia A friend; a mate.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a small inlet
  • noun small or narrow cave in the side of a cliff or mountain

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, chamber, cave, from Old English cofa.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Probably from Romani kova, man.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English cofa, from Proto-Germanic *kubô. Cognate with German Koben, Swedish kofva.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Romani kodo ("this one, him") . This definition is lacking an etymology or has an incomplete etymology. You can help Wiktionary by giving it a proper etymology.

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Examples

  • I'm fishing smack in the middle of New York City, on Central Park's Loeb Lake, and this cove is a tiny pocket in this 843-acre living work of art conceived 150 years ago by the great landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.

    The Lure of Central Park Ned Crabb 2010

  • And some time, when we get together in San Francisco, I'll lead you up against Bierce -- the one this cove is named after.

    CHAPTER VII 2010

  • The city-stateof Argos, ringing a mountainous cove, is a breathtaking bit of CGI imagery, while the gorgon and its lair are chillinglyatmospheric.

    Review: Clash of the Titans « Screaming Blue Reviews 2010

  • The cove is often listed among the best beaches in the world, and back then stars such as Liz Taylor and Richard Burton would fly in by helicopter before partying on the beach.

    In search of Errol Flynn's Jamaica Sarfraz Manzoor 2010

  • The tranquil cove is sheltered from the open sea behind a tier of craggy sea stacks.

    Hike to Cuastecomate, Jalisco 2007

  • The tranquil cove is sheltered from the open sea behind a tier of craggy sea stacks.

    Hike to Cuastecomate, Jalisco 2007

  • And some time, when we get together in San Francisco, I'll lead you up against Bierce -- the one this cove is named after.

    Chapter 7 1913

  • I calls my cove -- for he is my cove -- a snarler; because your first-rates at matthew mattocks are called snarlers, and for no other reason; for the chap, though with a high front, is a good chap, and once drank a glass of ale with me, after buying an animal out of my stable.

    The Romany Rye a sequel to "Lavengro" George Henry Borrow 1842

  • I calls my cove -- for he is my cove -- a snarler; because your first-rates at matthew mattocks are called snarlers, and for no other reason; for the chap, though with a high front, is a good chap, and once drank a glass of ale with me, after buying an animal out of my stable.

    The Romany Rye A Sequel to 'Lavengro' George Henry Borrow 1842

  • I calls my cove -- for he is my cove -- a snarler; because your first-rates at matthew mattocks are called snarlers, and for no other reason; for the chap, though with a high front, is a good chap, and once drank a glass of ale with me, after buying an animal out of my stable.

    The Romany Rye George Henry Borrow 1842

Comments

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  • "Now and then she'd find herself out the back lane against the fence with some sweetmouthed bloke whose name she could almost remember, a cove who didn't mind if she kept talking while he ran his hands about."

    Cloudstreet by Tim Winton, p 153 of the Graywolf Press hardcover edition

    March 31, 2010