hover
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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5 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "hover", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "hover" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "hover" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
hover is aEnglishverb. It means: To keep (something, such as an aircraft) in a stationary state in the air. Pronounced /ˈhɒvə/. Often confused with Howe and Huber.
| 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) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for hover is 5 letters long, classified as averb, 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 Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for hover, with forms such as "hhover", "hoevr", and "hoverr". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Howe", "Huber", "hoyer", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
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… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is hover, spelled H-O-V-E-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
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
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for hover
Misspelling Variants of "hover"
Frequency rank: #20,667 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter H in our English index: