Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use hover in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb, noun

Hover means to keep (something, such as an aircraft) in a stationary state in the air. Example: “The hummingbird hovered by the plant.”

Examples of hover by meaning

verbTo remain stationary or float in the air.

  • The hummingbird hovered by the plant.
  • Even without hovering drones, a lurking assassin, a thumping score and a denouement, the real-life story of Edward Snowden, a rogue spy on the run, could be straight out of the cinema.2013 June 29, “Travels and travails”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, London: Economist Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the...

verbSometimes followed by over: to hang around or linger in a place, especially in an uncertain manner.

  • His pen hovered above the paper.
  • The strange man hovered outside the gents’ toilet.
  • The visitors were hovering at the door, seemingly unwilling to enter.

verbTo be indecisive or uncertain; to vacillate, to waver.

  • Filling in the voting form, I hovered between Labour and Liberal Democrat.

verbChiefly followed by over: to use a mouse or other device to place a cursor over something on a screen such as a...

  • A tooltip appears when you hover over this link.

More sentences with hover

  • The nurse hovered her vein finder to locate the veins in the patient's body.From the entry vein
  • The crowd was distracted by a helicopter hovering over the stadium when the only goal of the game was scored.From the entry distract
  • Restore an autohidden window by hovering over its icon.From the entry autohide
  • Is it a thumb-up, a thumb-down, or is your fist still hovering uncertainly in the air?2025 February 1, James Horncastle, “The revamped Champions League: A success or a Super League devoid of jeopardy?”, in The Athletic, New…. From the entry thumb-up
  • Ba hovers over a stove in the well-lit room, glancing when he hears the creak underfoot.2023, Trang Thanh Tran, She is a Haunting, →ISBN. From the entry bánh xèo
  • Hover height, rate of ascent, and the rate of descent are controlled by using the collective.2021 July 27, Federal Aviation Administration, Helicopter Flying Handbook: FAA-H-8083-21B, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN. From the entry collective
  • An absence of light, a greyness, hovering over the wound like a cloud.2020, A.F.E. Smith, Dawn Rising, IronWright Books, →ISBN. From the entry unlight
  • A great sea of rain clouds hovers over a string of bison.2018, James P. Ronda, Visions of the Tallgrass: Prairie Photographs by Harvey Payne, University of Oklahoma Press. From the entry string
  • It floats on a cushion of huzun, the way an air-hockey puck hovers above the game table.2015 October 20, Dwight Garner, “Review: Orhan Pamuk’s ‘A Strangeness in My Mind’”, in New York Times. From the entry huzun
  • Adult syrphids, also called flower flies or hover flies, are not predaceous.2012, Steve H. Dreistadt, Integrated Pest Management for Citrus, Third Edition, page 94. From the entry syrphid
  • As its name suggests, the face fly hovers around the cow's face.2010, Leland S. Shapiro, Pathology & Parasitology For Veterinary Technicians 2E, Cengage Learning, page 136. From the entry face fly
  • At this hour, just before dawn, another nigrous presence came hovering over him to darken his face.2008, Glen Craney, The Fire and the Light: A Novel of the Cathars and the Lost Teachings of Christ. From the entry nigrous
  • Ragged embers, horn of an anvil, hovering bellows, a tongs of function and capernosity.2008, Tom MacIntyre, Find the Lady, page 18. From the entry capernosity
  • “Michel and Jean will be assisting today.” The tailor’s eyes hover at my chin.2007, Miah Arnold, “Snap”, in Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, editors, Painted Bride Quarterly: Printed Annual 4, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 291. From the entry sweetheartedly
  • Now I hear the humming of a humblebird coming, hovering, fading, returning and passing me by.1999, Leo Vroman, Details, Querido, →ISBN, page 69. From the entry humblebird
  • There were television pictures of the bees swarming, hovering and reswarming above her front door.1999, Nahmad, Claire, The cat herbal : simple green remedies for your cat, Souvenir Press, page 10. From the entry reswarm
  • A particular hat can not have a disjunctive colouring or hover between alternatives.1994, Raymond Earl Jennings, “What Does Disjunction do?”, in The Genealogy of Disjunction, New York, N.Y.; Oxford: Oxford University…. From the entry millineric
  • Betuxedoed waiters hover comfortably, lovingly, with that professional blend of attentiveness and distance.1993, TheaterWeek, volume 6, page 40, column 1. From the entry betuxedoed
  • Or one may hover, awed and respectful, between belief and unbelief.1993, Tony Tanner, “Introduction”, in Sylvan Barnet, editor, Tragedies (Everyman’s Library), volume 2, New York, N.Y.; Toronto, Ont.…. From the entry grandiloquize
  • The medic would have to hold them on hover and watch the radar for a clear setdown.1969, Andre Norton, chapter 13, in Postmarked the Stars, New York: Ballantine, published 1985, page 132. From the entry setdown
  • The gyrocabbie, wide-eyed, gazed after his fares for a moment, then hovered upward and away.1951, Isaac Asimov, “Hostess”, in Nightfall and Other Stories, Green City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., published 1969, page 76. From the entry gyrocab
  • He appeared, hovering calf-eyed over a fragile and lovely creature whose skirts rustled silkenly as she moved.1939, Edna Ferber, chapter 9, in A Peculiar Treasure, New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co., page 145. From the entry silkenly
  • Those haggard hands which hovered, eaglesque, over the world, met with no check.1930, Sax Rohmer, The Day the World Ended, published 1969, page xiii. 116. From the entry eaglesque
  • Looking back, it seemed to me that a slight oleaginous mist was still hovering round the chair.1929, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Disintegration Machine. From the entry oleaginous
  • Spinola was hovering about the external fittings of the figure with unusual fussiness.1923, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], “(please specify the page)”, in The Eyes of Max Carrados, London: Grant Richards…. From the entry action
  • There emerged from the fringe of things, where she perpetually hovered, Mrs.1920, Zona Gale, Miss Lulu Bett. From the entry lulu
  • He warmed up the engine; the bike hovered off the ground despite his weight and the extra equipment.2017 July 17, Nell's Tavern, Larry Brasington, page 50. From the entry bike
  • An air ambulance hovered overhead before landing on the track.2017, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Bad Dad, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN. From the entry air ambulance
  • Cells often will hover and send forth dozens of downstrikes in a concentrated area, particularly in areas like the Valle Caldera.2016, Kai Huschke, 50 Hikes in Northern New Mexico (Explorer's 50 Hikes), →ISBN. From the entry downstrike
  • Their thicknesses vary wildly; splotches hover over skewjawed jabs.2016, Barbara Hurd, Listening to the Savage: River Notes and Half-heard Melodies, page 29. From the entry skewjawed
  • But since my financial status hovered around zero on any given Sunday, I decided humor was the better route for me.2016, Kym Brunner, Flip the Bird, page 8. From the entry any given Sunday
  • Silence settles once more between us all, filled only by the gingerest of clinks of forks reluctantly hovering over flesh.2015, James Hannah, “Rib”, in The A to Z of You and Me, London: Black Swan, Transworld Publishers, →ISBN, page 221. From the entry ginger
  • The ghostly light hover in one spot, growing brighter absorbing the fear that is dripping like sweat over Richard's face.2014, Mark Richard Luther, Richard Tarbox, page 30. From the entry squink

Meaning of hover

  1. verb To keep (something, such as an aircraft) in a stationary state in the air.
  2. verb Of a bird: to shelter (chicks) under its body and wings; (by extension) of a thing: to cover or surround (something).
  3. verb Of a bird or insect: to flap (its wings) so it can remain stationary in the air.

Full definition of hover

Questions about hover in a sentence

How do you use hover in a sentence?
Hover is used as a verb and noun. For example: “The hummingbird hovered by the plant.”
What is a short sentence with hover?
“His pen hovered above the paper.”
What does hover mean?
Hover means to keep (something, such as an aircraft) in a stationary state in the air.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hover (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use hover in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/hover. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.