hover.
To keep (something, such as an aircraft) in a stationary state in the air.
Meaning & usage
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.
The hummingbird hovered by the plant.
Sometimes followed by over: to hang around or linger in a place, especially in an uncertain manner.
His pen hovered above the paper.
The strange man hovered outside the gents’ toilet.
To be indecisive or uncertain; to vacillate, to waver.
Filling in the voting form, I hovered between Labour and Liberal Democrat.
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.
To travel in a hovercraft as it moves above a water surface.
Where this word comes from
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.
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.
Where this word comes from
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.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.