Other forms: coves
A cove is a small sheltered bay. A rocky cove, anchor in the cove, a hidden cove.
It is smaller than a bay and usually has a narrow entrance, which is what gives it the shelter and is why smugglers liked them. Coves form where softer rock behind a hard coast is worn through. The Old English word meant a chamber or den.
1nouncoveA small sheltered bay.
“We swam in a quiet cove surrounded by high cliffs.”
cove is a bay.
Old English cofa means a chamber or den, from a Germanic root. The coastal sense came later.
Proto-Germanic
*kubô
Proto-West Germanic
*kobō
Old English
cofa — chamber; den
Middle English
cove
English, today
cove
From Middle English cove, from Old English cofa (“chamber; den”), from Proto-West Germanic kobō, from Proto-Germanic kubô. Cognate with Dutch koof (“cove”), German Low German Koov (“small room”), German Koben (“nook, shed”), Icelandic kofi (“hut, shack”). This word has probably survived as long as it has due to its coincidental phonetic resemblance to the unrelated word English cave. Also unrelated to Spanish cueva, which itself is a cognate of cave.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA