Hive

How to spell hive

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce hive

What does hive mean?

1. nounA structure or container in which a colony of bees lives.
2. verbTo gather, store, or transfer something into a separate place or unit, often used as 'hive off'.

Hive in a sentence

• noun

  The beekeeper opened the hive to inspect the honeycomb.

• verb

  The board plans to hive off the loss-making division into a new company.

• noun

  A wooden hive stood at the edge of the orchard.

• verb

  Managers wanted to hive away the spare cash in a reserve account.

Where does hive come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Hive comes straight from the Old English word hyf, which named the woven or wooden container in which bees were kept. That word traces back to a Germanic and ultimately Indo-European root meaning something hollowed out or a vessel that holds, the same broad family that gave us words for cups and bowls. From the earliest records the spelling kept its short, simple shape, and the silent final 'e' attached over time to mark the long 'i' sound, which is why a learner has to remember it ends in a vowel rather than just 'hiv'. By extension the word came to describe not only the bees' home but also the swarming community inside it, which is how we get the figurative sense of a busy, crowded place. The medical term 'hives' for an itchy rash is a separate later use, recorded from the 1500s, whose origin is genuinely uncertain.

How the word is built

• hive (from Old English hyf, a beehive); single root word with no prefix or suffix