cove

cove¹ inlet, sheltered nook

Etymology

The inlet is inherited from Middle English cove,^[2][3] inherited from Old English cofa (“small room, chamber, cell; cave, den”),^[4][5][3][6] from Proto-Germanic *kubô.^[3][7][8] It is cognate with Middle Low German kove (“hut”), Old High German kubisi (“tent, hut”), Middle High German kobe (“pen, stall”) (modern Koben (“pigsty”)) and Old Norse kofi (“hut, shed, cell”).^[6][3][5][9] Barnhart and Klein take it as probably also cognate with Ancient Greek γύπη (gúpē, “cave, hole”);^[6][10] Barnhart sets up Proto-Indo-European *gupā (“cave”),^[6] and Klein derives it from an enlarged form of Proto-Indo-European *geu- (“to bend, curve”).^[10] Köbler likewise connects the Germanic word with a root meaning to bend or arch.^[8] Ayto thinks the same Germanic word is probably the ultimate source of cubbyhole.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Old English, a small room or chamber, especially an inner room, from the Corpus Glossary,^[5][6] and also a cave or den, as in the Lindisfarne Gospels.^[5][4] Bosworth-Toller records it for an inner room, a repository and Noah's ark.^[4] In Middle English it meant a den or cave, first in the Cursor Mundi (before 1325).^[2][6][3]

Semantic evolution

The sense "cave, hollow in a rock" survived mainly in Scottish and northern English,^[5][7][9] and Etymonline and Ayto think the sense "small bay" grew from it, through a hollow place in coastal rocks.^[3][7] That sense is first recorded in 1590.^[5][6] In Middle English the word also meant a chamber or closet, preserved in the legal phrase cove and key, the right of the mistress of a household to the keys of the house.^[3][5][11] From 1511 it was an architectural term for a concave arch or vault, especially where a ceiling meets the wall,^[5] which Weekley derives from the old sense "recess".^[12] Later local senses include a steep-sided hollow in a mountainside (1805, Wordsworth; common in the Lake District), a sheltered recess among hills or woods (1768), and in parts of the United States a gap or pass (1872).^[5] The verb, to arch a ceiling, is recorded from 1756.^[5][13] In English dialects a cove was also a shed or lean-to, and in Kent the upper room of a cottage with a sloping roof.^[14] Johnson (1755) gave "a small creek or bay" and "a shelter; a cover".^[15]

Timeline

• before 800 – Old English cofa, a small room or chamber.^[5][6]
• before 1325 – a den or cave.^[2][6]
• 1511 – in architecture, a concave arch or moulding.^[5]
• 1590 – a small bay or inlet.^[5][6]
• 1631 – verb, to shelter in a cove (obsolete by 1708).^[5]
• 1756 – verb, to arch a ceiling.^[5][13]
• 1768 – a sheltered recess among hills or woods.^[5]
• 1805 – a steep-sided hollow in a mountainside.^[5]
• 1872 – in parts of the United States, a gap or pass.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small sheltered bay or inlet, usually between rocky headlands: The fishing boats waited out the storm in the cove.^[16][13][5]
2. A sheltered nook or recess, as among hills or woods.^[16][5]
3. A narrow cave or hollow in a cliff or rock face.^[16][13][5]
4. In architecture, a concave surface or moulding, especially where a ceiling meets the wall.^[16][13][5]
5. (obsolete) A small room or chamber.^[5][11]

Verb

1. To build in a concave form; to give a ceiling a cove.^[16][13][5]

Word family

• coving

cove² fellow, chap

Etymology

The fellow is a word of thieves' cant whose origin is disputed.^[5][17][9] Merriam-Webster, Collins, Ayto and the Shorter Oxford take it as possibly borrowed from Romani kova (“thing, person”),^{[13][16][7][11]} and Etymonline cites Barrère and Leland for cova (“a thing”) and covo (“that man”).^[3][18] The American Heritage Dictionary traces the Romani word to a demonstrative meaning "that, that one".^[19] The early spelling cofe led others to identify it with Scots cofe (“chapman, pedlar”), with the same shift of meaning as in chap;^{[5][12][17][9]} the OED objects that a change of f to v so late is unusual, and calls the origin obscure.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A man, a fellow: Green's Dictionary of Slang quotes it from about 1535, in R. Copland's “The Hye Way to the Spyttel House”,^[17] and the OED from 1567, in Harman's “Caveat for Common Cursetors”.^[5][13]

Semantic evolution

In the cant of the 16th and 17th centuries it formed many compounds: Dekker (1608) explains that cove, cofe or cuffin means a man, so that a gentleman is a gentry cove and a good fellow a bene cove.^[17] It passed into general slang as "fellow, chap", now dated,^[7][5][13] and was especially used in Australia,^[11] where in shearers' talk the cove was the boss or superintendent of a station.^[14][5]

Timeline

• c. 1535 – a man, in Copland.^[17]
• 1567 – a fellow, in Harman's “Caveat for Common Cursetors”.^[5][13]
• 1608 – Dekker explains gentry cove and bene cove.^[17]
• 1879 – in Australian shearers' talk, the master of a station.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. (chiefly British and Australian, dated slang) A man or fellow; a chap or bloke: He seemed a decent enough cove.^[13][11][16]
2. (Australia) The boss or manager of a sheep station.^[14][5]