louver

• loover (archaic)
• louvre (mainly UK)
• lover (obsolete)
• lovour (obsolete)
• luffer

Inherited from Middle English lover, from Old French lovier, lover (“skylight”), from Medieval Latin *lōdārium (attested as lōvārium), extension of lōdium, of unclear origin, but probably of Germanic origin and related to Frankish *laubijā (“shelter”).

• (UK) enPR: lo͞oʹvə, IPA^(key): /ˈluːvə/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) enPR: lo͞oʹvər, IPA^(key): /ˈluːvɚ/
• Rhymes: -uːvə(ɹ)

louver (plural louvers)

1. A type of turret on the roof of certain medieval buildings designed to allow ventilation or the admission of light. [from 14th c.]
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     But darknesse dred and daily night did hover / Through all the inner parts, wherein they dwelt; / Ne lightned was with window, nor with lover, / But with continuall candle-light […].

2. (chiefly in the plural) A series of sloping overlapping slats or boards which admit air and light but exclude rain etc. [from 16th c.]
3. Any of a system of slits, as in the hood of an automobile, for ventilation.

• louvered, louvred

• jalousie

• Louvre, louvre, velour

From louve +‎ -er, evidently related to louve (“she-wolf”), comparing the tight grip of tools to the jaws of a wolf.

• IPA^(key): /lu.ve/

• Audio:

  (file)

louver

1. (transitive) to drill a hole in a stone for the attachment of a wedge

• louve

• “louver”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.