Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To remain floating, suspended, or fluttering in the air.
  • intransitive verb To remain or linger in or near a place.
  • intransitive verb To remain in an uncertain state; waver.
  • noun The act or state of hovering.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To keep lingering about; wait near at hand; move about waveringly, cautiously, or hesitatingly; go to and fro near or about a place or an object.
  • To hang fluttering in the air, as a bird or an insect while seeking food or a place to alight; linger over or about a place or an object.
  • To be in an indeterminate or irresolute state; stand in suspense or expectation; waver as to a decision or a result: as, a patient hovering between life and death; a mind hovering on the verge of madness.
  • To protect or shelter; cover with the wings and body: said of a brooding fowl: as, a hen with more chickens than she can hover.
  • noun Same as hoverer.
  • noun A protection or shelter.
  • noun In prosody, a foot consisting of mere accentual place.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive 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.
  • intransitive verb To hang about; to move to and fro near a place, threateningly, watchfully, or irresolutely.
  • noun Archaic A cover; a shelter; a protection.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To float in the air.
  • verb To linger in one place.
  • verb To waver, or be uncertain.
  • verb computing To place the cursor over a hyperlink or icon without clicking.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb be suspended in the air, as if in defiance of gravity
  • verb move to and fro
  • verb hang in the air; fly or be suspended above
  • verb hang over, as of something threatening, dark, or menacing
  • verb be undecided about something; waver between conflicting positions or courses of action

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English hoveren, frequentative of hoven.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old English hoveren (frequentative of hoven).

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Examples

  • The Dative of Reference denotes the person _to whom a statement refers, of whom it is true_, or _to whom it is of interest; _ as, -- mihi ante oculōs versāris, _you hover before my eyes_ (lit. _hover before the eyes to me_); illī sevēritās amōrem nōn dēminuit, _in his case severity did not diminish love_ (lit. _to him severity did not diminish_); interclūdere inimīcīs commeātum, _to cut of the supplies of the enemy.

    New Latin Grammar Charles E. Bennett

  • Barring some weird event, we'll basically see John McCain hover at around 43% until the election and Obama moving between 44 and 49.

    Eschaton 2008

  • The bolding-on-hover is gone, and I added in a picture of some older designs of the site for comparison.

    Nine Years, and a New Look - Anil Dash 2008

  • Furthermore, Bruce Wayne has griped endlessly about the tactical flaws in hover-related activities.

    MEMO: Appropriate Stances When Confronting Evildoers En Masse 2005

  • The method we used was called "hover fishing", which means that we put a gob of eggs on the bottom with a 2 ounce sinker and just let the current move the bait across the bottom.

    The Seattle Times 2011

  • 1 Some coins hover around the border between two grades and thus may just barely qualify for their respective assigned grades.

    The Coin Market Phenomenon of 2009 is the Widening Gap between the Prices of High End and Low End Certified Coins : Coin Collecting News 2009

  • “By hover I meant someone who interferes,” she told him.

    Castles and The Lion’s Lady Julie Garwood 1993

  • I saw an anxious expression hover across her face for a second, to be quickly replaced by her ordinary society look of calm, studied suavity.

    She and I, Volume 1

  • I saw the golden coin hover on her breaths; I saw her eyes darken and brighter, and still speak no language but that of an unfathomable kindness; I saw the faultless face, and, through the robe, the lines of the faultless body.

    Merry Men Robert Louis Stevenson 1872

  • · hoverClass (string) - Default: "hover" - Sets the class given to elements when they are currently hovered.

    Softpedia - Windows - All Softpedia Webscripts 2010

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