hover
/ˈhɒvə/
"hover" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“hover” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #20,667 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #20,667
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To keep (something, such as an aircraft) in a stationary state in the air.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | hover |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ˈhɒvə/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #20,667 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “hover” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for hover is 5 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈhɒvə/. Corpus data places it at rank #20,667 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for hover, with forms such as "hhover", "hoevr", and "hoverr". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Howe", "Huber", "hoyer", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: 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 *h… The correct English form is hover, spelled H-O-V-E-R.
Definition
- 1To keep (something, such as an aircraft) in a stationary state in the air.
- 2Of a bird: to shelter (chicks) under its body and wings; (by extension) of a thing: to cover or surround (something).
- 3Of a bird or insect: to flap (its wings) so it can remain stationary in the air.
- 4To remain stationary or float in the air.
- 5Sometimes followed by over: to hang around or linger in a place, especially in an uncertain manner.
- 6To be indecisive or uncertain; to vacillate, to waver.
- 7Chiefly 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).
- 8To travel in a hovercraft as it moves above a water surface.
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.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hhover,hoevr,hoverr,hovre,hovver,hvoer,ohver
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of hover - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “hover”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is H-O-V-E-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈhɒvə/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “Howe” - see the side-by-side comparison. hover vs Howe
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.