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PlainSpell

dove

/dʌv/noun, verb

dove is spelled D-O-V-E: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 4.7 times per million words in written English, the 11,685th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “dive vs dove” about 10 times a month (Bing, United States). As a noun, dove means “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…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of dove is doves.

How many letters and syllables are in dove?

Letters4: D-O-V-E
Syllables1
In writing4.7 times per million words; the 11,685th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Pairs people search
Rhymes with
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is dove?

Dove appears 4.7 times per million words in written English, the 11,685th 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 dove?

  • /dʌv/
  • /dʊv/

As a verb: /dəʊv/, /doʊv/.

Dove has one syllable.

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

Words people confuse with dove

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

dive vs dove10 B

Also written: dow.

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with dove?

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

Spelled with the same letters in another order: devo.

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 dove

  • doves plural

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

What does dove mean?

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

noun

  1. 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. 2

    A person favouring conciliation and negotiation rather than conflict.

  3. 3

    A term of endearment for one regarded as pure and gentle.

  4. 4

    A greyish, bluish, pinkish colour like that of the bird.

  5. 5

    slangEllipsis of love dove (“a tablet of the drug ecstasy”).

verb

  1. 1

    CanadaUSsimple past of dive (a form of dive)

    When coffee and cocoa prices unexpectedly dove, Côte d’Ivoire quickly went from Africa’s rich kid to crippling debtitude.

  2. 2

    nonstandardpast participle of dive (a form of dive)

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

Dove in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchcolombe, pigeon (bird of the family Columbidae, especially one…)
GermanTaube (bird of the family Columbidae, especially one…), Täubchen (term of endearment)
Portuguesepombo, pomba (bird of the family Columbidae, especially one…)
Spanishpichón, urpi, tortolito, tortolita, totaqui, urpila (bird of the family Columbidae, especially one…)

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 dove come from?

From Middle English douve, dove, duve, from Old English *dūfe (“dove, pigeon”), from Proto-West Germanic *dūbā, from Proto-Germanic *dūbǭ (“dove, pigeon”).

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

What to look up after dove