ALCOVE

s. This English word comes to us through the Span. alcova and Fr. alcove (old Fr. aucube ), from Ar. al-ḳubbàh , applied first to a kind of tent (so in Hebr. Numbers xxv. 8) and then to a vaulted building or recess. An edifice of Saracenic construction at Palermo is still known as La Cuba ; and another, a domed tomb, as La Cubola . Whatever be the true formation of the last word, it seems to have given us, through the Italian, Cupola . [Not so in N.E.D. ]