- alcove
- alcove: [17] Alcove is of Arabic origin. It reached English, via French alcôve and Spanish alcoba (where it means ‘recessed area for a bed’), from Arabic al-qobbah ‘the arch, the vault’, hence ‘the vaulted room’, which was derived from the verb qubba ‘vault’.
- alcove (n.)
- 1670s, "vaulted recess," from French alcôve (17c.), from Spanish alcoba, from Arabic al-qobbah "the vaulted chamber," from Semitic base q-b-b "to be bent, crooked, vaulted."