culver

plural culvers

1. UKsouth and east dialect or poeticA dove or pigeon, now specifically of the species Columba palumbus.

   Had he ſo doen, he had him ſnatcht away, / More light then Culuer in the Faulcons fiſt.

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 281

   2 more examples

   The palsie plagues my pulses when I prigg yoͬ: piggs or pullen your culuers take, or matchles make your Chanticleare or sullen

   c. 1620, anonymous, “Tom o’ Bedlam’s Song” in Giles Earle his Booke (British Museum, Additional MSS. 24, 665)

   Then he walked on a little and came to a goodly cage, than which was no goodlier there, and in it a culver of the forest, that is to say, a wood-pigeon, the bird renowned among birds as the minstrel of love-longing, with a collar of jewels about its neck marvellous fine and fair.

   1885, Richard F[rancis] Burton, transl. and editor, “Uns al-Wujud and the Wazir’s Daughter al-Ward Fi’l-Akmam or Rose-in-Hood. [Night 376.]”, in A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, now Entituled The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night […], Shammar edition, volume V, [London]: […] Burton Club […], →OCLC, page 49

   Synonyms: wood pigeon, wood-pigeon, woodpigeon

plural culvers

1. A culverin, a kind of handgun or cannon.

   Falcon and culver on each tower / Stood prompt, their deadly hail to shower; […]

   1805, Walter Scott, “Canto Fourth”, in The Lay of the Last Minstrel: A Poem, London: […] [James Ballantyne] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, […], and A[rchibald] Constable and Co., […], →OCLC, stanza XVII, page 108

alternative Colfer

1. A surname.
2. A number of places in the United States:
   1. A town in Marshall County, Indiana.
   2. A minor city in Ottawa County, Kansas.
   3. An unincorporated community in Elliott County, Kentucky.
   4. An unincorporated community and township in Saint Louis County, Minnesota.
   5. An extinct town in Bates County, Missouri.
   6. A minor city in Jefferson County, Oregon.