haven

To put into, or provide with a haven.

Noun

  1. A harbour or anchorage protected from the sea.
    • And the stately ships go on / To their haven under the hill; - 1842, Alfred Tennyson, “"Break, break, break,"”, in Poems. […], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 229:
  2. A safe place.
    • Since its conception, the European Union has been a haven for those seeking refuge from war, persecution and poverty in other parts of the world. - 2011 December 21, Helen Pidd, “Europeans migrate south as continent...

    Synonyms: refuge sanctuary zoar

  3. A peaceful or tranquil place.
  4. A certain type of function on sets of vertices in an undirected graph, able to be used by an evader to win a pursuit-evasion game on the graph.

Origin

From Middle English haven, havene, from Old English hæfen (“haven; harbour; port”), from Proto-West Germanic *habanu, from Proto-Germanic *habnō, *habanō (compare Dutch haven, German Hafen, Norwegian/Danish havn, Swedish hamn, French havre), from Proto-Germanic *habą (“sea”) (compare Old English hæf, Middle Low German haf, Old Norse haf (“sea”), German Haff (“bay or lagoon behind a spit”), perhaps, in the sense of "heaving sea", etymologically identical with Old Norse haf (“heaving, lifting, uplift, elevation”), derived from Proto-Germanic *habjaną (“to lift, heave”)), or from Proto-Indo-European *kh₂pnós (compare Old Irish cúan (“harbor, recess, haven”)). Doublet of abra.

Forms

havens

Derived

Barrow Haven Blue Haven Broad Haven Brookhaven East Haven Fairhaven Grand Haven havenage havener havenless havenlike havenward havenwards Lake Haven Little Haven Littlehaven Lock Haven Milford Haven Moore Haven New Haven North Haven Peacehaven Rest Haven safehaven

Verb Entry 2

  1. To put into, or provide with a haven.

Forms

havens havening havened

Verb form of, obsolete

  1. plural simple present of have
    • And they that occupye them bene in moche ſauegarde, and hauen greate conſolacyon, and bene the readyer vnto all goodnes, the ſlower to all euyll, and yf they haue done any thing amyſe, anone euen by the ſyght of the...
    • For Lord, what charity hauen such men of religion, that knowen how they mowen against and sinne, and fleen awat from their brethren that bene more vncunning then they ben, and suffren thē to trauelen in the world...
    • The craftie Badger, the Watry Otter / Whome Howndes purſue, till they hauen got her / Theſe Beaſtes been of higheſt Regard and Price / To pleaſure Princes and to murder vice. - 1606, N[athaniel] B[axter], Sir Philip...

Origin

From Middle English haven; equivalent to have + -en (plural simple present ending).