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alcove

UK/ˈæl.kəʊv/US/ˈæl.koʊv/
nounC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,711 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: alcoves

An alcove is a small recess set back into a wall. A reading alcove, a bed in the alcove, an alcove shelf.

In an older house the recesses either side of a chimney breast are the standard place for shelving, since the depth is already there. The word came into English from Arabic through Spanish, which is why it has that al- at the front.

Daderot · Public domain

Definitions of alcove

  1. 1nounalcoveA small recess set back into a wall.C1

    “We put a small desk in the alcove next to the window.”

alcove is a recess.

Where it comes from

Arabic al-qubba, a vault or domed chamber, through Spanish alcoba and French alcove.

  1. Arabic

    قبة — vault, chamber with vaulted roof

  2. Portuguese

    alcova

  3. Spanish

    alcoba

  4. French

    alcôve

  5. English, today

    alcove

From French alcôve, from Spanish alcoba or Portuguese alcova, from Arabic قبة (“vault, chamber with vaulted roof”). a doublet of qubba.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Buildings & Architecture

Practise this word

alcove in the wild

  • In English, a tokonoma could be called an alcove.

    Tokonoma

  • A setback as a minimum one-bay indent across all stories is called a recessed bay or recess and is the more common exterior form of an alcove.

    Setback (architecture)

  • Mantle's Cave is a cliff alcove in Dinosaur National Monument in Moffat County, Colorado.

    Mantle's Cave

  • The hearth was used for cooking, and its enclosing alcove became a natural place for people seeking warmth to gather.

    Inglenook

  • The painting is displayed in an alcove under a set of stairs at the Frick.

    Mother and Children

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.