Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈkʌlvə/
- Rhymes: -ʌlvə
Etymology 1
From Middle English culver, from Old English culufre, culfre, culfer, possibly borrowed from Vulgar Latin *columbra, from Latin columbula (“little pigeon”), from Latin columba (“pigeon, dove”).
Noun
culver (plural culvers)
- (now UK, south and east dialect or poetic) A dove or pigeon, now specifically of the species Columba palumbus.
- c. 1620, anonymous, “Tom o’ Bedlam’s Song” in Giles Earle his Booke (British Museum, Additional MSS. 24, 665):
- The palsie plagues my pulses
when I prigg yoͬ: piggs or pullen
your culuers take, or matchles make
your Chanticleare or sullen
- 1885, The book of the thousand nights and a night Vol. 5, Richard Burton:
- a culver of the forest, that is to say, a wood-pigeon.
Etymology 2
From culverin.
Noun
culver (plural culvers)
- A culverin, a kind of handgun or cannon.
1805, Walter Scott, “(please specify the page)”, in The Lay of the Last Minstrel: A Poem, London: […] [James Ballantyne] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, […], and A[rchibald] Constable and Co., […], →OCLC:Falcon and culver on each tower / Stood prompt their deadly hail to shower.
Noun
culver (plural culveres or culveren)
- A dove (Columba spp.)
c. 1395, John Wycliffe, John Purvey [et al.], transl., Bible (Wycliffite Bible (later version), MS Lich 10.), published c. 1410, Joon 2:16, page 45r, column 2; republished as Wycliffe's translation of the New Testament, Lichfield: Bill Endres, 2010:And he ſeide to hem þat ſelden culueris / take ȝe awei from hennes þeſe þingis .· ⁊ nyle ȝe make þe hous of my fadir an hows of marchaundiſe- And he said to those who sold doves: "Take those things out of here; you won't make my father's house a place of business!"
- An affectionate term of familiarity.