cove
/koʊv/noun, verb
Small sheltered bay, coastal inlet, or hollow nook
From Proto-Germanic *kub- / *kubō (Shelter).
Lineage
The story
Picture an Old English household in a timber hall: behind the main room was a little cofa, a chamber or tucked-away den. That compact Germanic word survived into Middle English as cove, carrying the sense of a hollow nook before it ever became chiefly coastal. By the 1580s, Scottish usage had helped shift the image outdoors, toward a small hollow in coastal rock—and then toward the sheltered inlet we recognize today. Wait, really? The familiar word cave is not its ancestor at all: cave came through Old French and Latin, from a different root meaning “hollow.” There is also a later slang cove meaning “fellow” or “mate,” probably from Romani, so one spelling shelters several histories—like a tiny bay hiding more than one boat.
Modern usage
A pal, mate, or male acquaintance, sometimes implying disreputability
- Heard in
- Scottish slang · Australian slang
- See
- Urban Dictionary entries describe cove as “pal or mate” in parts of Scotland and as a male acquaintance in Australia.