dove

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English douve, also duve and dove,^[2][3][4] probably inherited from Old English *dūfe, a form found only as the first part of the compound dūfedoppa, which Barnhart glosses as a dabchick and Orel as a pelican.^{[5][2][6][7][8]} The Oxford dictionaries (Hoad, the Shorter Oxford, the Oxford Dictionary of English) instead take the Middle English word from Old Norse dúfa;^{[9][10][11][12]} the OED notes that in Old English the bird was usually called culufre, the source of culver.^[5] It goes back to Proto-Germanic *dūbǭ,^[2][13][6] the source also of Old Saxon dūba, Old Frisian dūve, Middle Dutch dūve (modern duif), Old High German tūba (modern Taube) and Gothic 𐌷𐍂𐌰𐌹𐍅𐌰𐌳𐌿𐌱𐍉 (hraiwadūbō, “turtledove”).^{[5][2][6][13]} Its further origin is uncertain.^[13][5] Kroonen and the OED take it as probably derived from the Germanic verb for "to dive", comparing Latin columba (“dove”) beside Ancient Greek κόλυμβος (kólumbos, “diver”);^[13][5][14] Etymonline finds that link unclear unless it refers to the bird's flight.^[2] Klein, Barnhart and Orel instead see a "dark-coloured bird", from Proto-Indo-European *dheubh- (“to fill with smoke, darken”), related to deaf and Old Irish dub (“black”), and compare Ancient Greek πέλεια (péleia, “wild dove”) beside πελιός (peliós, “dark, livid”).^[8][6][7][4] The Shorter Oxford takes the Germanic base to imitate the bird's call.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

A bird of the pigeon family: about 1200, in the Trinity College Homilies.^[5] Barnhart finds the word probably before 1200, and already in 1150 in the place name Duvebrigge.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The name was first used of all pigeons and is now mostly kept for the smaller kinds such as the turtledove.^[2][4] Since early Christian times the dove has stood for gentleness, innocence and tender love, for the Holy Spirit, and for peace and deliverance, after the dove that Noah sent out from the ark.^[2][12][5] In English it was a term of endearment from about 1386, in Chaucer's Merchant's Tale,^[5][2] then from Shakespeare's time a name for a gentle or innocent woman or child.^[5] Johnson (1755) defined it as "a wild pigeon".^[15] The political sense, someone who prefers negotiation to war, is dated by 1917 by Etymonline, from the Christian dove of peace;^[2] the OED's first quotation is from 1962,^[5] and the Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins links dove and hawk to the Cuban missile crisis of the early 1960s.^[12] Since the 1980s dove has also been slang for a kind of ecstasy tablet stamped with a dove and, in the United States, for a piece of crack cocaine.^[5][16] In Scotland the word is doo or dow, and the English Dialect Dictionary records it from many English counties.^[17][10]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – a bird of the pigeon family.^[5]
• c. 1386 – a term of endearment, in Chaucer.^[5][2]
• 1543 – an image of a dove as a symbol of innocence.^[5]
• before 1616 – a gentle, innocent or loving woman or child.^[5]
• 1629 – a messenger of peace, after Noah's dove.^[5]
• 1707 – the Holy Spirit.^[5]
• 1917 – a person who argues for peace.^[2]
• 1962 – in politics, an opponent of military action, as against a hawk.^[5]
• 1986 – slang, a piece of crack cocaine or an ecstasy tablet.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. Any of many birds of the pigeon family Columbidae, especially the smaller wild kinds such as the turtledove.^[4][18][5]
2. (politics) A person who favours negotiation and peaceful policies over the use of force; the opposite of a hawk.^[18][5]
3. A gentle or innocent person, especially a woman or child; also used as a term of endearment.^[4][18][5]
4. The dove as a symbol of the Holy Spirit or of peace.^[5][12]
5. (slang) A tablet of ecstasy marked with a dove; in the United States, a piece of crack cocaine.^[16][5]

Word family

• dovish
• dovishness
• dovelike
• dovekie
• dovetail
• lovey-dovey
• ringdove

Related words

• culver
• dive
• deaf

Usage notes

Dove is also a past tense of dive, used especially in North America beside the older dived.^[19][20][1] It probably arose on the pattern of drive, drove and ride, rode,^[20][10][21] and the American Heritage Dictionary notes that it is one of the few verbs that have moved from the regular to the irregular pattern, like wore and spat.^[19] Random House treats both forms as standard, with dove the more common in speech in the northern United States and Canada; the past participle is always dived.^[20] In British English dived is the standard form, and dove is dialectal.^[1][10]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c d Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b c d Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
14. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
17. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
18. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
19. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
20. ^ a b c Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
21. ^ Cassidy, Frederic G. & Joan Houston Hall (eds.) (1985–2002), Dictionary of American Regional English, vols I–IV, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press