From French alcôve, from Spanish alcoba or Portuguese alcova, from Arabic القُبَّة (al-qubba, “vault, chamber with vaulted roof”). Doublet of qubba.
Meanings
A small recessed area set off from a larger room.
It was very different from such bookstores as he had been accustomed to patronize. Two stories of the old house had been thrown into one: the lower space was divided into little alcoves; above, a gallery ran round the wall, which carried books to the ceiling. 1919, Christopher Morley, “The Haunted Bookshop”, in The Haunted Bookshop, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, →OCLC, page 4:
A shady retreat.
The house was situated in a leafy alcove.
(countable) The geographical and geological term for a steep-sided hollow in the side of an exposed rock face or cliff of a homogeneous rock type, that was water eroded.