hover
/ˈhʌvɚ/ verb B2- 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).
- 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.
Plural hover · He/she/it hovers · Past hovered · Past participle hovered · -ing form hovering
Verb forms
- Base form
- hover
- He/she/it
- hovers
- Past
- hovered
- Past participle
- hovered
- -ing form
- hovering
From the library
The nervous excitement of which we speak pursued Valentine even in her sleep, or rather in that state of somnolence which succeeded her waking hours; it was then, in the silence of night, in the dim light shed from the alabaster lamp on the chimney-piece, that she saw the shadows pass and repass which hover over the bed of sickness, and fan the fever with their trembling wings.
An Eagle, hovering near, heard her lamentation and demanded what reward she would give him if he would take her aloft and float her in the air.
When the two were established at a well-appointed table, with a promising waiter hovering in attendance, Chandler began to experience the real joy that his regular outing always brought to him.
The idea of suicide, which his friend had driven away and kept away by his cheerful presence, now hovered like a phantom over the abbé’s dead body.
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