Word.ws English Dictionary

calve

/kɑːv/US/kæv/

calve verb: to give birth to a calf.

Verb

calve (third-person singular simple present calves, present participle calving, simple past and past participle calved)

  1. (intransitive) To give birth to a calf.
    • The farmer could tell Bessie was about to calve.
  2. (intransitive) To assist in a cow’s giving birth to a calf.
    • The farmer calved Bessie for almost two hours.
  3. (transitive) To give birth to (a calf).
  4. (especially, figuratively, intransitive, a glacier, an ice sheet) To shed a large piece.
    • The glacier was starting to calve even as we watched.
  5. (especially, figuratively, intransitive) To break off.
    • The sea was dangerous because of icebergs calving off the nearby glacier.
  6. (especially, figuratively, transitive, a glacier, an ice sheet) To shed (a large piece); to set loose (a mass of ice).
    • The glacier was starting to calve an iceberg even as we watched.

calve meaning in Tamil and Kannada

calve in Tamil

to give birth to a calf
கன்றுபோடு kaṉṟupōṭu

calve in Kannada

ಈಯು, ಕರುಹಾಕು, ಕರುವೀನ್

Examples of calve in a sentence

  • The baccy crop's looking good, ja, and one of the mombies calved this morning.
  • At the start of calving season, there was another bum calf, Ferdinand, whose mother had abandoned him.
  • There were six young heifers that had just calved.

All 12 example sentences with calve

Forms of calve

third-person singular presentcalves
present participlecalving
past participlecalved
pastcalved

Origin of calve

From Middle English calven, from Old English *calfian, cealfian, from Proto-West Germanic *kalbōn, from Proto-Germanic *kalbōną (“to calve”), from *kalbaz (“calf”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian koolvje, Dutch kalven, German Low German kalven, German kalben, Swedish kalva, Icelandic kálfa.

Words formed from calve

Words that rhyme with calve

Questions about calve

What does calve mean?
Calve means to give birth to a calf.
What is calve in Tamil?
Calve in Tamil is கன்றுபோடு (kaṉṟupōṭu). See Calve meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is calve?
Calve is a verb.
How do you pronounce calve?
Calve is pronounced /kɑːv/ (UK).
What is the past tense of calve?
The past tense of calve is calved.

Words near calve in the dictionary

  1. Calvary cross
  2. Calvary crosses
  3. calvas
  4. calvasculin
  5. calvasone
  6. calve
  7. calved
  8. Calveley
  9. calveolin
  10. calver
  11. calvered

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: calve (page history and authors); calve (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-calve.wav.

Cite this entry: “calve.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/calve. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.