Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of various widely distributed birds of the family Columbidae, which includes the pigeons, having a small head and a characteristic cooing call.
- noun A gentle, innocent person.
- noun A person who advocates peace, conciliation, or negotiation in preference to confrontation or armed conflict.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun An occasional preterit of
dive . - To slumber; be in a state between sleeping and waking.
- noun Any bird of the family Columbidæ; a pigeon.
- noun The word has no more specific meaning than this, being exactly synonymous with pigeon; in popular usage it is applied most frequently to a few kinds of pigeons best known to the public, and as a book-name is commonly attached to the smaller species of pigeons: as, the ring-dove, turtle-dove, stock-dove, ground-dove, quail-dove, etc. The Carolina dove, or mourning dove, is Zenaidura carolinensis. The common doves of the old world are the ring-dove, rock-dove, stock-dove, and turtle-dove. (See these words.) In poetry, and in literature generally, the dove is an emblem of innocence, gentleness, and tender affection. In sacred literature and art it is a symbol of the Holy Ghost.
- noun Eccles., a repository or tabernacle for the eucharist, in the form of a dove, formerly used in the East and in France.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Zoöl.) A pigeon of the genus Columba and various related genera. The species are numerous.
- noun A word of endearment for one regarded as pure and gentle.
- noun a person advocating peace, compromise or conciliation rather than war or conflict. Opposite of
hawk . - noun (Zoöl.) a mite (
Argas reflexus ) which infests doves and other birds. - noun [Slang] a prostitute.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb
Strong-declension simple past ofdive . - verb nonstandard Past participle of
dive - noun A
pigeon , especially one smaller in size; a bird (often arbitrarily called either apigeon or a dove or both) of more than 300 species of the familyColumbidae . - noun politics A person favouring
conciliation andnegotiation rather thanconflict (as opposed tohawk ). - noun engineering Dove, an engineering
reference point in a computer program that will cause some type ofdefault action.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun flesh of a pigeon suitable for roasting or braising; flesh of a dove (young squab) may be broiled
- noun any of numerous small pigeons
- noun a constellation in the southern hemisphere near Puppis and Caelum
- noun someone who prefers negotiations to armed conflict in the conduct of foreign relations
- noun an emblem of peace
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The image of a dove is also associated with Anne in her poem "Self-Communion" and with Helen Huntingdon, the heroine of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell Bront 1846
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Do chunks of elemental lead lying around on the ground get absorbed into the bloodstream of common animals in dove fields?
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Now comes the new prez as a hawk in dove's clothing.
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Snipe give bonus lessons in dove and waterfowl shooting, too.
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We invented the omission of punctuation and capital letters, stanzas in the shape of a dove from the libraries of Alexandria.
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Do chunks of elemental lead lying around on the ground get absorbed into the bloodstream of common animals in dove fields?
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Fitzgerald finished with eight catches for 166 yards and a scintillating 29-yard catch-and-run TD on which he dove from the 3-yard line and stretched the football inside the pylon before falling out of bounds.
NFL Replay: Wild playoffs turn front-runners into has-beens 2009
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Then, you can read me in dove words, and spell me to myself.
dovespeak Grey Johnson 2010
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So in both cases, the liberal dove is calling for negotiation.
Matthew Yglesias » Domestic Politics vs. Foreign Policy 2009
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We invented the omission of punctuation and capital letters, stanzas in the shape of a dove from the libraries of Alexandria.
wiredweird commented on the word dove
(rhymes with love) - a kind of bird
(rhymes with cove) - past tense of dive
March 27, 2007
sonofgroucho commented on the word dove
OOooooooooooo....
March 27, 2007
bilby commented on the word dove
Italian has another pronunciation again.
September 2, 2008
oroboros commented on the word dove
The Mourning Dove's call (oooo,oooo,oo) is the Morse Code equivalent of 'R': dah dah dit.
March 4, 2014
oroboros commented on the word dove
Some dove humor.
March 4, 2014