Word.ws English Dictionary

dovish

/ˈdʌvɪʃ/

dovish adjective: pertaining to a dove; dove-like.

Adjective

dovish (comparative more dovish, superlative most dovish)

  1. Pertaining to a dove; dove-like.
  2. (figuratively) Peaceful, conciliatory.
    • According to Kathleen A. Francovic, director of surveys for CBS News, it was the “war and peace” issue that seemed to separate the sexes in 1980, with women predictably perched on the dovish side.1982 December 10, Ann Hulbert, “What Gender Gap?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
    • Doubtless an expression of frustration at the UN secretary general, who has long been too dovish for Bush administration tastes.2006 July 18, Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian, page 3
    Antonyms:
    hawkish
  3. Disfavoring increasing interest rates; inclined against increasing interest rates.
    • The Federal Reserve's statement on recent inflation was interpreted as dovish by the market.
    • A dovish policy keeps unemployment close to 6 percent and lets the price level swing more widely to absorb economic shocks.1985, Price Stability and Public Policy, page 143
    Antonyms:
    hawkish

Examples of dovish in a sentence

  • Caillaux bypassed his Foreign Office in order to impose his own dovish agenda on the negotiations with Berlin […].2012, Christopher Clark, The Sleepwalkers, Penguin, published 2013, page 210:
  • It is entirely possible, for example, that Cameron’s dovish views on China, criticised by many, will not survive now that he is back in office.2023 November 15, Helene von Bismarck, “In Europe, we can’t help laughing at David Cameron’s return – but we welcome it too”, in The...
  • By appearing more dovish than the central bank actually is, the trade-off it faces between stabilization of inflation and stabilization fo the output gap is likely to worsen.2010, Jordi Galí, “The New-Keynesian Approach to Monetary Policy Analysis: Lessons and New Directions”, in Volker Wieland, editor, The...

Synonyms of dovish

1 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

Forms of dovish

comparativemore dovish
superlativemost dovish
alternative formdoveish

Origin of dovish

From dove + -ish.

Words formed from dovish

Questions about dovish

What does dovish mean?
Dovish means pertaining to a dove; dove-like.
How do you use dovish in a sentence?
Caillaux bypassed his Foreign Office in order to impose his own dovish agenda on the negotiations with Berlin […].
What part of speech is dovish?
Dovish is an adjective.
How do you pronounce dovish?
Dovish is pronounced /ˈdʌvɪʃ/.

Words near dovish in the dictionary

  1. Dovhan
  2. Dovhe
  3. Dovid
  4. dovie
  5. dovies
  6. dovish
  7. dovishly
  8. dovishness
  9. dovitinib
  10. Dovre
  11. Dovzhansk

Source and license

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