Dive or dove?
dove is the simple past of dive. dive is also a noun: “A jump or plunge into water”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) dive is about 2.8 times as common as dove.
What is the difference between dive and dove?
| dive | dove | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb, noun | noun, verb |
| Meaning | To swim under water To jump into water head-first A jump or plunge into water A headfirst jump toward the ground or into another substance | simple past of dive A pigeon, especially one smaller in size and white-colored; a bird (often arbitrarily called either a pigeon or a dove or both) of more than three hundred… A person favouring conciliation and negotiation rather than conflict |
| Example | He dove in the water to save her | When coffee and cocoa prices unexpectedly dove, Côte d’Ivoire quickly went from Africa’s rich kid to crippling debtitude |
| Forms | dives, diving, dived, dove, doven | none |
| Pronunciation | /daɪv/ /ˈdiːveɪ/ | /dʌv/ /dʊv/ /dəʊv/ |
| In writing | 13 times per million words | 4.7 times per million words |
Sources: dive and dove in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of dive and dove
dive
- 1
To swim under water
He dove in the water to save her
- 2
A jump or plunge into water
the dive of a hawk after prey
- 3
To jump into water head-first
- 4
A headfirst jump toward the ground or into another substance
- 5
To jump headfirst toward the ground or into another substance
to dive into home plate
- 6
A downward swooping motion
- 7
To descend sharply or steeply
- 8
A swim under water
dove
- 1
A pigeon, especially one smaller in size and white-colored; a bird (often arbitrarily called either a pigeon or a dove or both) of more than three hundred species of the family Columbidae
- 2
A person favouring conciliation and negotiation rather than conflict
- 3
A term of endearment for one regarded as pure and gentle
- 4
A greyish, bluish, pinkish colour like that of the bird
- 5
slangEllipsis of love dove (“a tablet of the drug ecstasy”)
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, dive or dove?
dive appears 13 times per million words; dove 4.7 times per million words.
dive 13 times per million wordsdove 4.7 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search dive vs dove?
“dive vs dove” is searched about 10 times a month on Bing (Google reports it together with close variants, so it has no figure of its own) in the United States.
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.