hover — English Dictionary

Verb

1. To keep (something, such as an aircraft) in a stationary state in the air.

   Usage

   • Transitive

2. Of a bird: to shelter (chicks) under its body and wings; (by extension) of a thing: to cover or surround (something).

   Usage

   • Transitive

   Examples

   More examples (1)

   Castration has a ſtrange effect: it emaſculates both man, beaſt, and bird, and brings them to a near reſemblance of the other ſex. […] Capons have ſmall combs and gills, and look pallid about the head, like pullets; they alſo vvalk vvithout any parade, and hover chickens like hens.

3. Of a bird or insect: to flap (its wings) so it can remain stationary in the air.

   Usage

   • Obsolete
   • Transitive

   Examples

   O'er the deer Corps ſomtimes her vvings ſhe [an eagle] hovers, / Somtimes the dead breſt vvith her breſt ſhe covers, […]

   Thus have I lain conceal'd like a vvinter Fly, hoping for ſome bleſt Sun-Shine to vvarm me into Life again, and make me hover my flagging VVings; […]

4. To remain stationary or float in the air.

   Usage

   • Intransitive

   Examples

   The hummingbird hovered by the plant.

   More examples (5)

   [T]hough you go to Theaters to see sport, Cupid may cache you ere you departe. The little god hovereth aboute you, and fanneth you with his wings to kindle fire: when you are set as fixed whites, Desire draweth his arrow to the head, and sticketh it uppe to the fethers, and Fancy bestireth him to shed his poyson through every vayne.

   Thus meerely vvith the garment of a grace, / The naked and concealed feind he couerd, / That th'vnexperient gaue the tempter place, / VVhich like a Cherubin aboue them houerd, / VVho young and ſimple vvould not be ſo louerd.

   Long and patiently did I vvait for this unlucky Crovv […] till at length having guzzl'd and croak'd enough, vvhen by hovering over his beloved Dainties, he had raiſ'd himſelf high enough, to prompt me to fire at him, […]

   [T]he Mercers encreaſing prodigiouſly vvent back into the City; there like Bees unhiv'd they hover about a vvhile, not knovving vvhere to fix; but at laſt, as if they vvould come back to the old Hive in Pater-noſter Rovv, but could not be admitted, the ſvvarm ſettled on Lu[d]gate-hill.

   Over Descartian vortices you hover. And perhaps, at mid-day, in the fairest weather, with one half-throttled shriek you drop through that transparent air into the summer sea, no more to rise for ever.

   Thou hoveredst, like a guardian angel—healing in thy wings, and glad-tidings all around thee—over the poor lost-one.

   More examples (3)

   Here are there were smaller craft—wherries, steam-launches, tenders, and what not; and they seemed like so many flies hovering on the surface of the water when they came near that majestic ship.

   […] I found we were lying in a roadstead among many low and rocky islets, hovered about by an innumerable cloud of sea-fowl.

   Even without hovering drones, a lurking assassin, a thumping score and a denouement, the real-life story of Edward Snowden, a rogue spy on the run, could be straight out of the cinema. But, as with Hollywood, the subplots and exotic locations may distract from the real message: America's discomfort and its foes' glee.

5. Sometimes followed by over: to hang around or linger in a place, especially in an uncertain manner.

   Usage

   • Figurative
   • Intransitive

   Synonyms

   wasp around

   Examples

   His pen hovered above the paper.

   The strange man hovered outside the gents’ toilet.

   More examples (9)

   The visitors were hovering at the door, seemingly unwilling to enter.

   Some helicopter parents weren’t so much dropping off their kids as hovering over them until the event started.

   Alas, this that you ſee, is not Antonio, / His ſpirit houers in Piero’s Court, / Hurling about his agill faculties, / To apprehend the ſight of Mellida: […]

   Oh! if thou hover'ſt round my vvalk, / VVhile, under ev'ry vvell-knovvn tree, / I to thy fancy'd ſhadovv talk, / And every tear is full of thee.

   [T]he fat swimmeth above, and the best thereof hovereth always uppermost; but the unclean matter, or the dregs is left at the bottom like a dead carcase and worthless thing. Even so likewise, God will deal at the day of judgment, therewith he will separate all things through fire, will separate the righteous from the ungodly, […]

   But often, when he felt the harshness of experience creep over him— […] the image of that fair child, […] hovered over him; and the very air grew warmer, as if with a living breath.

   Pestilence was hovering in the track of famine.

   The neighbourhood, to our ears, seemed haunted by approaching footsteps; and what between the dead body of the captain on the parlour floor, and the thought of that detestable blind beggar hovering near at hand, and ready to return, there were moments when, as the saying goes, I jumped in my skin for terror.

   "Overall satisfaction with rail journey", as measured fortnightly by Transport Focus, has maintained a broadly flat line at around 85% across the last four months of travel disruption, while "satisfaction with punctuality/reliabilty" is hovering around 75%.

6. To be indecisive or uncertain; to vacillate, to waver.

   Usage

   • Figurative
   • Intransitive

   Examples

   Filling in the voting form, I hovered between Labour and Liberal Democrat.

   More examples (3)

   And the reason why the land-lord will no longer covenant with him [the husbandman], is, for that he dayly looketh after change and alteration, and hovereth in expectation of new worlds.

   When the soul is hovering in the last moments of its separation, […] what can support her under such tremblings of thought, such fear, such anxiety, such apprehensions, but the casting of all her cares upon Him who first gave her being, who has conducted her through one stage of it, and will be always with her in her progress through eternity?

   Arthur Ashburton was rather cold and distant towards her, and was obviously in a bad temper. He even hovered on the verge of rudeness towards both herself and the Lieutenant.

7. 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).

   Usage

   • Intransitive

   Examples

   A tooltip appears when you hover over this link.

8. To travel in a hovercraft as it moves above a water surface.

   Usage

   • Intransitive

Noun

1. An act, or the state, of remaining stationary in the air or some other place.

2. A flock of birds fluttering in the air in one place.

3. An act, or the state, of being suspended; a suspension.

   Usage

   • Figurative

4. 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.

   Usage

   • Southern-England

   Examples

   Oyſters grevv vpon boughs of trees (an Indian miracle) vvhich vvere caſt in [the pond] thither, to ſerue as a houer for the fiſh.

   More examples (2)

   And now, down the rushing stream, […] past dark hovers under swirling banks, from which great trout rushed out on Tom, thinking him to be good to eat, and turned back sulkily, for the fairies sent them home again with a tremendous scolding, for daring to meddle with a water-baby; […]

   Without the instinct of self-preservation, which causes the sea-anemone to contract its tentacles, or the fish to dash into its hover, species would be extermined wholesale by involuntary suicide.

Verb

1. be undecided about something; waver between conflicting positions or courses of action

   Synonyms

   vibratevacillateoscillate

   Broader terms

   hesitatewaverwaffle

   Examples

   He oscillates between accepting the new position and retirement

2. to hang about in a place beyond the proper or usual time

   Synonyms

   linger

   Broader terms

   hesitatewaverwaffle

   Examples

   The shy student lingered in the corner

3. hang in the air; fly or be suspended above

   Broader terms

   flywing

4. be suspended in the air, as if in defiance of gravity

   Synonyms

   levitate

   Broader terms

   flywing

   Examples

   The guru claimed that he could levitate

5. hang over, as of something threatening, dark, or menacing

   Synonyms

   broodloombulk large

   Broader terms

   hang

   Examples

   The terrible vision brooded over her all day long