Dove Tattoo Meaning

Peace, purity, hope, and the faithful white bird's return.

The dove is the bird that comes back. Gentle, white, and devoted to its mate, it became almost everywhere the bearer of good news and the emblem of peace, love, and the faithful spirit. It carried the olive branch that meant the flood was over; it descended as the very form of the divine spirit; it drew the chariot of the goddess of love. Where the raven flies off into the ruined world and does not return, the dove returns — and that returning, bearing a sign that the worst is past, is the hope the bird has always carried.

When the floodwaters began to fall, Noah sent out a raven, which ranged over the drowned world and did not come back. Then he sent a dove. The first time, it found no place to rest and returned to his hand. He waited seven days and sent it again — and this time it came back at evening with a fresh olive leaf in its beak. Noah knew the waters had receded and life was returning to the earth. The dove with the olive branch became, from then on, the universal sign that the catastrophe is over and peace has come.

The dove carried an even higher meaning in Christianity: at Jesus's baptism, the heavens opened and the Spirit of God descended 'like a dove' and rested on him. So the dove became the very emblem of the Holy Spirit, of divine peace and grace entering the world. Between Noah's flood and the Jordan's baptism, the dove fixed its meaning for the whole Western world: the gentle bird whose arrival means that grace has returned and the worst is behind you.

The dove is perhaps the most universally recognized symbol of peace, appearing on peace flags, UN imagery, and antiwar art worldwide. In Christian tradition, it represents the Holy Spirit and divine peace. In secular culture, Picasso's dove became the icon of the postwar peace movement. Doves mate for life, adding fidelity to their symbolic weight. In tattoo symbolism, the dove represents peace, faithful love, and the hope that violence will end and something gentle will take its place.

Dove across cultures

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