Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Cove

Cove (kōv) , noun

[Anglo-Saxon cofa room; akin to German koben pigsty, orig., hut, Icelandic kofi hut, and perh. to English cobalt.]

1.
A retired nook; especially, a small, sheltered inlet, creek, or bay; a recess in the shore.
Vessels which were in readiness for him within secret coves and nooks. — Holland
2.
A strip of prairie extending into woodland; also, a recess in the side of a mountain. [United States]
3.
(a) (Architecture) A concave molding.
(b)
(Architecture) A member, whose section is a concave curve, used especially with regard to an inner roof or ceiling, as around a skylight.

Cove (k?vd) , transitive verb

(Architecture) To arch over; to build in a hollow concave form; to make in the form of a cove.
The mosques and other buildings of the Arabians are rounded into domes and coved roofs. — H. Swinburne
Collocations (2)
Coved ceiling , a ceiling, the part of which next the wail is constructed in a cove.
Coved vault , a vault composed of four coves meeting in a central point, and therefore the reverse of a groined vault.

Cove , transitive verb

[CF. French couver, Italian covare. See Covey.]

To brood, cover, over, or sit over, as birds their eggs. [Obsolete]
Not being able to cove or sit upon them [eggs], she [the female tortoise] bestoweth them in the gravel. — Holland

Cove , noun

[A gypsy word, covo that man, covi that woman.]

A boy or man of any age or station. [Slang]
There's a gentry cove here. — Wit's Recreations (1654)
Now, look to it, coves, that all the beef and drink Be not filched from us. — Mrs. Browning