Dive - dove

In British English, the past tense of the verb 'to dive' is dived.

In American English, dove is the usual form, pronounced to rhyme with 'stove' - with the same vowel sound as that in the first syllable of over (IPA: /əʊ/). 'When the outlaws arrived, the sheriff dove to the floor'; 'She dove particularly well in the Olympic swimming pool'. This can be misleading, because of the more common homograph,

• • the noun dove which means a kind of bird - and is pronounced to rhyme with 'love' (IPA: /ʌ/).

In current British English the past tense dove is unknown, although it seems logical enough on the analogy of 'to drive'/'drove': but OED does not record it before the 19th century. In British English, the past tense of 'to dive' is 'dived'. (You may also want to see dive (irregular verb).)