Doven
verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 past participle of dive dialectal, form-of, participle, past
"“Now,” said Bobbit, with an amazing chuckle for a boy who was going to give to-morrow’s dinner to another boy, “you walk right along as ef you was going to walk a mile, and when you see I ’ve doven — dive!” The next they knew after that, Bobbit had “doven” into the old engine boiler, and they after him."
- 2 Alternative form of daven. alt-of, alternative
"I vatched^([sic]) through the portholes as they would doven and chant / ‘Hey, mein Liebe, heyyyy.’"
Example
More examples"“Now,” said Bobbit, with an amazing chuckle for a boy who was going to give to-morrow’s dinner to another boy, “you walk right along as ef you was going to walk a mile, and when you see I ’ve doven — dive!” The next they knew after that, Bobbit had “doven” into the old engine boiler, and they after him."
Etymology
From dove + -en.
More for "doven"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.