wove

1. 1
   verb

   Past tense of weave.

   The artisan wove intricate patterns into the tapestry.

   He wove between the parked cars to reach the far sidewalk.

   Note

   One past-tense form serves every meaning of weave, from the loom to the road: a basket of reeds, a web, a story carefully fabricated, a path through traffic. The transitive uses take an object (she wove a tale), while the turning-and-twisting sense stands alone (he wove through the crowd). After have or had, careful English avoids it. That use is its nonstandard participle role.

2. 2
   verbnonstandard

   Past participle of weave (nonstandard; the standard form is woven).

   By the end of the week she had wove three scarves for the fair.

   He had wove the rumor into something nobody could untangle.

   Note

   Once a respectable participle, it now sounds colloquial and nonstandard. Francis Leguat writes "might have wove Stuffs" in 1701, and Walter Scott's The Bride of Lammermoor (1823) has pearls "which they have wove among her black tresses." Today, after have, has or had, it marks casual speech. In writing, use woven instead: she had woven three scarves.

3. 3
   adjective

   Made on a mold of closely woven wire, giving the paper a uniform surface without visible lines.

   Like fabric with such a fine weave that you cannot see the individual threads.

   The printer favored wove stock because it took fine illustrations cleanly.

   She sketched on a sheet of wove paper that showed no grain at all.

   Oppositelaid

   Note

   Papermaking keeps the older participle as a fixed term, the respectable survival of the nonstandard "had wove". The name describes the mold rather than the sheet: the wire screen is closely woven, and paper formed on it is wove. It applies only to paper and is not comparable, so no sheet is "more wove" than another. It sits before the noun, as in wove paper or wove stock.

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