dove-like

comparative more dove-like · superlative most dove-like

1. alternativeAlternative form of dovelike.

   […] and she was so dove-like, so pure, and so gracious, so sweet and bewitching.

   1880, Mark Twain [pseudonym] (Samuel L[anghorne] Clemens), chapter IX, in A Tramp Abroad; […], Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company; London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 88

   4 more examples

   Yet Love, thou'rt blinder then thy self in this, / To vex my Dove-like friend for my amiss[…].

   1635, John Donne, His parting from her

   While he went on, and learnedly perplext / The genuine Meaning of his choſen Text, / I caſt my Eyes above him, and explor’d / The Dove-like Form upon the ſounding Board. / That Bird, thought I, was put there as a Sign / What Kind of Spirit guides a good Divine: […]

   a. 1764, John Byrom, “An Answer to some Enquiries, concerning the Author’s Opinion of a Sermon preached at⸺ upon the Operation of the Holy Spirit”, in Miscellaneous Poems, Manchester: […] J. Harrop, published 1773, page 204

   She had her pets as well as he, and her life and that of her future partner promised to be as dove-like as possible.

   1842, [Katherine] Thomson, chapter V, in Widows and Widowers. A Romance of Real Life., volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 118

   As she looked at this bunch of too-full-blown roses, and realized the message that it was intended delicately to convey, the dove-like and olive-branching sentiments departed from her breast—and in their place came sentiments compounded of daggers and bow-strings and very poisonous bowls!

   1914, Thomas Allibone Janvier, At the Casa Napoleon, page 140