hover
UK /ˈhɒvə/ · US /ˈhʌvɚ/ verb, noun, proper noun
Forms hovers hovering hovered hoverest hoveredst hovereth
- verb To keep (something, such as an aircraft) in a stationary state in the air.
- verb Of a bird: to shelter (chicks) under its body and wings; (by extension) of a thing: to cover or surround (something).
- verb (obsolete) Of a bird or insect: to flap (its wings) so it can remain stationary in the air.
- verb To remain stationary or float in the air. “The hummingbird hovered by the plant.”
- verb Sometimes followed by over: to hang around or linger in a place, especially in an uncertain manner. “His pen hovered above the paper.”
- verb To be indecisive or uncertain; to vacillate, to waver. “Filling in the voting form, I hovered between Labour and Liberal Democrat.”
- verb (computing) Chiefly followed by over: to use a mouse or other device to place a cursor over something on a screen such as a hyperlink or icon without clicking, so as to produce a result (such as the appearance of a tooltip). “A tooltip appears when you hover over this link.”
- verb (nautical) To travel in a hovercraft as it moves above a water surface.
- noun An act, or the state, of remaining stationary in the air or some other place.
- noun A flock of birds fluttering in the air in one place.
- noun (figuratively) An act, or the state, of being suspended; a suspension.
- noun (chiefly Southern England) A cover; a protection; a shelter; specifically, an overhanging bank or stone under which fish can shelter; also, a shelter for hens brooding their eggs.
- proper noun A surname.
Synonyms
wasp around vibrate vacillate oscillate linger levitate brood loom bulk large
Etymology
The verb is derived from Middle English hoveren (“to float in the air, hover; to stay”), probably from hoven (“hover; of a bird: to fly high in the air, soar”) (which it displaced) + -er- (frequentative suffix). Hoven is probably derived from Old English *hōfian, from hōfon, the plural past indicative form of hebban (“to lift, raise”), from Proto-West Germanic *habbjan, from Proto-Germanic *habjaną (“to lift; to heave”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *keh₂p- (“to hold, seize”). The English word is analysable as hove (“(obsolete) to remain suspended, float, hover; to linger, wait”) + -er (frequentative suffix).
The noun is derived from the verb.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A cover; a shelter; a protection. [Archaic] Carew. C. Kingsley.
- verb To hang fluttering in the air, or on the wing; to remain in flight or floating about or over a place or object; to be suspended in the air above something.
- verb To hang about; to move to and fro near a place, threateningly, watchfully, or irresolutely.
Etymology [Etymol. doubtful.]
Etymology [OE. hoveren, and hoven, prob. orig., to abide, linger, and fr. AS. hof house; cf. OFries. hovia to receive into one's house. See Hovel.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “hover”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details