couver
French, verb/ku.ve/
couver is spelled C-O-U-V-E-R (6 letters) and appears about once in every 3 million words in written French, the 51,956th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Couver is a French verb meaning “to brood (an egg)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Couvrir de son corps ses œufs pour entretenir la chaleur qui les fait éclore, en parlant des oiseaux”.
What does couver mean in English?
verb
- 1
to brood (an egg)
- 2
to coddle, pamper, mollycoddle
- 3
to plot, hatch, scheme
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
verb: 1. Couvrir de son corps ses œufs pour entretenir la chaleur qui les fait éclore, en parlant des oiseaux. 2. S'occuper avec soin de quelqu'un, comme un oiseau le fait de ses œufs. 3. Cacher, préparer sourdement. 4. Être caché sous la cendre.
The definition in the French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), in French.
Source: French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
Forms of couver
- avoir + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
- couvant gerund participle present
- ayant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
- couvé participle past
- couve first-person indicative present
- couves indicative present second-person
- couvons first-person indicative plural
- couvez indicative plural present
- couvent indicative plural present
- couvais first-person imperfect indicative
- couvait imperfect indicative singular
- couvions first-person imperfect indicative
- couviez imperfect indicative plural
- couvaient imperfect indicative plural
- couvai first-person historic indicative
- couvas historic indicative past
- couva historic indicative past
- couvâmes first-person historic indicative
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce couver?
- /ku.ve/
- \ku.ve\
- [ku.ve]
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
English words that translate to couver
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is couver in French?
couver appears about once in every 3 million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).