dove
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "dove", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "dove" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "dove" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
dove is aEnglishnoun. It 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 300 species of the family Columbidae. Pronounced /dʌv/. Often confused with DV and due.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | dove |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /dʌv/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #11,687 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for dove is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /dʌv/. Corpus data places it at rank #11,687 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 5 documented wrong-spelling variants for dove, with forms such as "ddove", "doev", and "dovve". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "DV", "due", "DVD", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dʰewbʰ-der.? Proto-Germanic *dūbaną? Proto-Germanic *dūbǭ Proto-West Germanic *dūbā Old English *dūfe Middle English douve English dove Inherited from Middle English douve, dove, duve, from Old English *dūfe (“dove, pigeo… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is dove, spelled D-O-V-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A 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 300 species of the family Columbidae.
- 2A person favouring conciliation and negotiation rather than conflict.
- 3Term of endearment for one regarded as pure and gentle.
- 4A greyish, bluish, pinkish colour like that of the bird.
- 5Ellipsis of love dove (“tablet of the drug ecstasy”).
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dʰewbʰ-der.? Proto-Germanic *dūbaną? Proto-Germanic *dūbǭ Proto-West Germanic *dūbā Old English *dūfe Middle English douve English dove Inherited from Middle English douve, dove, duve, from Old English *dūfe (“dove, pigeon”), from Proto-West Germanic *dūbā, from Proto-Germanic *dūbǭ (“dove, pigeon”). Cognate with Scots doo, dow, Saterland Frisian Duuwe, West Frisian do, Dutch duif, Afrikaans duif, Sranan Tongo doifi, German Taube, German Low German Duuv, Dutch Low Saxon duve, doeve, Danish due, Faroese dúgva, Icelandic dúfa, Norwegian Bokmål due, Norwegian Nynorsk due, Swedish duva, Yiddish טויב (toyb), Gothic *𐌳𐌿𐌱𐍉 (*dubō).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ddove,doev,dovve,dvoe,odve
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for dove
Misspelling Variants of "dove"
Frequency rank: #11,687 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter D in our English index: