Etymology From Middle English culver, from Old English culufre, culfre, culfer, possibly borrowed from Vulgar Latin *columbra, from Latin columbula (“little pigeon”), from Latin columba (“pigeon, dove”).
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UK A dove or pigeon, now specifically of the species Columba palumbus.
South and east dialect or poetic
Had he ſo doen, he had him ſnatcht away, / More light then Culuer in the Faulcons fiſt.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 281:
The palsie plagues my pulses when I prigg yoͬ: piggs or pullen your culuers take, or matchles make your Chanticleare or sullenc. 1620, anonymous, “Tom o’ Bedlam’s Song” in Giles Earle his Booke (British Museum, Additional MSS. 24, 665)
1 more example
Then he walked on a little and came to a goodly cage, than which was no goodlier there, and in it a culver of the forest, that is to say, a wood-pigeon, the bird renowned among birds as the minstrel of love-longing, with a collar of jewels about its neck marvellous fine and fair.1885, Richard F[rancis] Burton, transl. and editor, “Uns al-Wujud and the Wazir’s Daughter al-Ward Fi’l-Akmam or Rose-in-Hood. [Night 376.]”, in A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, now Entituled The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night […], Shammar edition, volume V, [London]: […] Burton Club […], →OCLC, page 49:
Etymology From culverin, perhaps by confusion with culver (“dove or pigeon”).
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A culverin, a kind of handgun or cannon.
Falcon and culver on each tower / Stood prompt, their deadly hail to shower; […]1805, Walter Scott, “Canto Fourth”, in The Lay of the Last Minstrel: A Poem, London: […] [James Ballantyne] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, […], and A[rchibald] Constable and Co., […], →OCLC, stanza XVII, page 108: