couver

\ku.ve\

/\ku.ve\/ verb

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“couver” is uncommon French (frequency #51,988 among 8,609 “C” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#51,988
frequency rank, French
8,609
“C” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Couvrir de son corps ses œufs pour entretenir la chaleur qui les fait éclore, en parlant des oiseaux.

Corpus desk

Index FR-couver · couver · French

couver · rank #51,988 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #51,988
  • LEN-LONG 6 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 8,609
  • PHOTO-FINISH craquage

Nearest frequency peer: craquage (+1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Rangs de longue queue près de « couver »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « couver » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for couver
PropertyValue
Headwordcouver
LanguageFrench
Part of speechVerb
IPA\ku.ve\
Letters6
Frequency rank#51,988
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « couver » en français

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).couvertombe dans cette queue de rareté:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Les tics avancent en logarithme; chacun est de l'ordre de dix fois plus rare. Voisins rares de la même bande: « craquage » (#51,989), « courons » (#51,986), « crase » (#51,990). Parmi 8,609 lemmes en « C », « couver » est au #51,988. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

couver is uncommon French at frequency #51,988 among 8,609 “C” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed \ku.ve\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 6 senses are on record.

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for couver, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is couver, spelled C-O-U-V-E-R.

Definition

  1. 1
    Couvrir de son corps ses œufs pour entretenir la chaleur qui les fait éclore, en parlant des oiseaux.
  2. 2
    S'occuper avec soin de quelqu'un, comme un oiseau le fait de ses œufs.
  3. 3
    Cacher, préparer sourdement.
  4. 4
    Être caché sous la cendre.
  5. 5
    (En parlant d'une maladie, d'une catastrophe, d'un coup d'état, d'un sentiment, etc.) se développer, se préparer d'une manière qui n'est pas encore apparente.
  6. 6
    Il faut laisser couver cela, se dit d’une chose qu’il ne faut pas se presser de faire.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how couver appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Les oiseaux couvent leurs œufs.
  2. Cette poule a couvé tant d’œufs.

Synonyms

bichonnercajolercâlinerchérirchouchouterchoyercomblercoucounnerdorloterentourergâtermignardermignoterpouponnersoinoccupersoigner

This word in other languages

brood(English)empollar(Español)brüten(Deutsch)incubar(Português)

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "couver"?
"couver" is spelled C-O-U-V-E-R. The IPA pronunciation is \ku.ve\.
What does "couver" mean?
As a verb, "couver" means: Couvrir de son corps ses œufs pour entretenir la chaleur qui les fait éclore, en parlant des oiseaux.
How do you pronounce "couver"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "couver" is \ku.ve\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "couver" come from?
"couver" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "couver", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Denoël#52,000Diagne#52,003cognée#51,966Dorsey#52,010

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list