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cove

/koʊv/noun, verb

cove is spelled C-O-V-E: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 4.4 times per million words in written English, the 12,216th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, cove means “A hollow in a rock; a cave or cavern” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of cove is coves.

How many letters and syllables are in cove?

Letters4: C-O-V-E
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing4.4 times per million words; the 12,216th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Sounds like
Rhymes with

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is cove?

Cove appears 4.4 times per million words in written English, the 12,216th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce cove?

  • UK /kəʊv/
  • US /koʊv/
  • Australia /kəʉv/

Cove has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: EN-AU_ck1_cove.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with cove

Sounds like: Cobh (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).

Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with cove?

11 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as cove from its last stressed vowel (/oʊv/):

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of cove

  • coves plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • coving participle, present
  • coved participle, past
  • couve

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does cove mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    A hollow in a rock; a cave or cavern.

  2. 2

    A concave vault or archway, especially the arch of a ceiling.

  3. 3

    A small coastal inlet, especially one having high cliffs protecting vessels from prevailing winds; bight.

  4. 4

    USA strip of prairie extending into woodland.

  5. 5

    A recess or sheltered area on the slopes of a mountain.

  6. 6

    The wooden roof of the stern gallery of an old sailing warship.

  7. 7

    A thin line, sometimes gilded, along a yacht's strake below deck level.

  8. 8

    A valley between two ridges, especially one that, opening to the south and east, is protected by ridges on the north and west from common winter storm tracks.

  9. 9

    UKdatedMan; fellow.

  10. 10

    AustraliaFriend; mate.

verb

  1. 1

    To arch over; to build in a hollow concave form; to make in the form of a cove.

  2. 2

    obsoleteOf a bird or other animal: to brood, cover, incubate, or sit over (eggs).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Cove in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchgrotte, caverne (rare: hollow in a rock), arcade, voûte (architecture: concave vault), crique, anse (small coastal inlet, especially one having high…)
GermanGrotte, Kaverne (rare: hollow in a rock), Voute, Hohlkehle, Gewölbe (architecture: concave vault), Bucht (small coastal inlet, especially one having high…)
Portugueseenseada (small coastal inlet, especially one having high…)
Spanishensenada (small coastal inlet, especially one having high…)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does cove come from?

From Middle English cove, from Old English cofa (“chamber; den”), from Proto-West Germanic *kobō, from Proto-Germanic *kubô. Cognate with Dutch koof (“cove”), German Low German Koov (“small room”), German Koben (“nook, shed”), Icelandic kofi (“hut, shack”). This word has probably survived as long as it has due to its coincidental phonetic resemblance to the unrelated word English cave. Also unrelated to Spanish cueva, which itself is a cognate of cave.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after cove