hover
Meanings
verb
- To keep (something, such as an aircraft) in a stationary state in the air.
- Of a bird: to shelter (chicks) under its body and wings; (by extension) of a thing: to cover or surround (something).
- Of a bird or insect: to flap (its wings) so it can remain stationary in the air.
- To remain stationary or float in the air.
- Sometimes followed by over: to hang around or linger in a place, especially in an uncertain manner.
- To be indecisive or uncertain; to vacillate, to waver.
- 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).
- 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.
- A flock of birds fluttering in the air in one place.
- An act, or the state, of being suspended; a suspension.
- 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.
name
- A surname.
Pronunciation
Word forms
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.
Synonyms
Related words
Derived words
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.