alcove

From French alcôve, from Spanish alcoba or Portuguese alcova, from Arabic القُبَّة (al-qubba, “vault, chamber with vaulted roof”). Doublet of qubba.

• IPA^(key): /ˈæl.kəʊv/

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alcove (plural alcoves)

1. (architecture) A small recessed area set off from a larger room.
   • 1919, Christopher Morley, The Haunted Bookshop‎, New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers, →OCLC, page 4:

     It was very different from such bookstores as he had been accustomed to patronize. Two stories of the old house had been thrown into one: the lower space was divided into little alcoves; above, a gallery ran round the wall, which carried books to the ceiling.

2. A shady retreat.

   The house was situated in a leafy alcove.

3. (countable) The geographical and geological term for a steep-sided hollow in the side of an exposed rock face or cliff of a homogeneous rock type, that was water eroded.

• coeval, coëval

alcove f

1. plural of alcova

• celavo, vocale