hive

Etymology

From Middle English hyfe, from Old English hȳf, from Proto-Germanic *hūbī (compare Dutch huif (“beehive”), Danish dialect huv (“ship’s hull”)), from Proto-Indo-European *kuHp- (“water vessel”) (compare Latin cūpa (“tub, vat”), Ancient Greek κύπη (kúpē, “gap, hole”), κύπελλον (kúpellon, “beaker”), Sanskrit कूप (kū́pa, “cave”)), from *kew- (“to bend, curve”). The computing term was chosen as an in-joke relating to bees; see .

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /haɪv/
• Rhymes: -aɪv

Noun

hive (plural hives)

1. A structure for housing a swarm of honeybees.
   • Dryden, Virgil's Georgics IV.10-13:

     First, for thy Bees a quiet Station find,

     And lodge 'em under Covert of the Wind:

     For Winds, when homeward they return, will drive

     The loaded Carriers from their Ev'ning Hive.

2. The bees of one hive; a swarm of bees.
   • Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida I.3:

     When that the general is not like the hive, to whom the foragers shall all repair, what honey is expected?

3. A place swarming with busy occupants; a crowd.
   • Tennyson, Boadicea:

     There the hive of Roman liars worship a gluttonous emperor-idiot.

4. (computing, Microsoft Windows) A section of the registry.
   • 2006, Jean Andrews, Fixing Windows XP, page 352:

     Windows builds the registry from the five registry hives […]

   • 2011, Samuel Phung, Professional Microsoft Windows Embedded CE 6.0

     For devices built with hive-based registry implementation, the registry data are broken into three different hives — the boot hive, system hive, and user hive.

Verb

hive (third-person singular simple present hives, present participle hiving, simple past and past participle hived)

1. (intransitive, entomology) To enter or possess a hive.
2. (intransitive) To form a hive-like entity.
3. (transitive) To collect into a hive.

   to hive a swarm of bees

4. (transitive) To store in a hive or similarly.
   • Byron

     Hiving wisdom with each studious year.

5. (intransitive) To take shelter or lodgings together; to reside in a collective body.
   • Pope

     to get into warmer houses, and hive together in cities