hoverfly
/ˈhʌ.vɚˌflaɪ/noun
hoverfly is a noun meaning “Any of various flies from the family Syrphidae that hover in the air and feed on the nectar of flowers” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled H-O-V-E-R-F-L-Y and has 3 syllables, and it appears about once in every 54 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of hoverfly is hoverflies.
What does hoverfly mean?
noun
- 1
Any of various flies from the family Syrphidae that hover in the air and feed on the nectar of flowers.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce hoverfly?
- US /ˈhʌ.vɚˌflaɪ/
Hoverfly has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-hoverfly.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of hoverfly
- hoverflies plural
- hover-fly
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is hoverfly?
Hoverfly appears about once in every 54 million words in written English, the 228,409th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Hoverfly in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense fly in the family Syrphidae:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | syrphe |
| German | Schwebfliege |
| Portuguese | mosca-das-flores |
| Spanish | sírfido |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does hoverfly come from?
From hover + fly.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).