hover

Plural: hover, hovered, hovers

Verb

Verb Forms: hovered, hovering, hovers

To remain suspended in the air.
be undecided about something; waver between conflicting positions or courses of action
move to and fro
hang in the air; fly or be suspended above
be suspended in the air, as if in defiance of gravity
hang over, as of something threatening, dark, or menacing
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).
Of a bird or insect: to flap (its wings) so it can remain stationary in the air.
To remain stationary or float in the air.
Sometimes followed by over: to hang around or linger in a place, especially in an uncertain manner.
To be indecisive or uncertain; to vacillate, to waver.
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).
To travel in a hovercraft as it moves above a water surface.

Noun

An act, or the state, of remaining stationary in the air or some other place.
A flock of birds fluttering in the air in one place.
An act, or the state, of being suspended; a suspension.
A cover; a protection; a shelter; specifically, an overhanging bank or stone under which fish can shelter; also, a shelter for hens brooding their eggs.

Examples

A tooltip appears when you hover over this link.
Filling in the voting form, I hovered between Labour and Liberal Democrat.
His pen hovered above the paper.
My opponent would HOVER his hand over the Scrabble board, agonizing over every tile placement.
Some helicopter parents weren’t so much dropping off their kids as hovering over them until the event started.
The hummingbird hovered by the plant.
The strange man hovered outside the gents’ toilet.
The visitors were hovering at the door, seemingly unwilling to enter.

Origin / 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.

Synonyms

brood, bulk large, levitate, linger, loom, oscillate, vacillate, vibrate, wasp around

Scrabble Score: 11

hover: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Word
hover: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
hover: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary

Words With Friends Score: 11

hover: valid Words With Friends Word