From Middle English hoven (“to linger, wait, hover, move aside, entertain, cherish, foster”), from Old English *hofian (“to receive into one's house”), from Proto-Germanic *hufōną (“to house, lodge”), from Proto-Germanic *hufą (“hill, height, farm, dwelling”), from Proto-Indo-European *keup- (“to arch, bend, buckle”).
Cognate with Old Frisian hovia (“to receive into one's home, entertain”), Old Dutch hoven (“to receive into one's home, entertain”). Related to Old English hof (“court, house, dwelling”). More at hovel.
Meanings
(intransitive, obsolete) To remain suspended in air, water etc.; to float, to hover.
As shee arrived on the roring shore, / In minde to leape into the mighty maine, / A little bote lay hoving her before[…]. 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
(intransitive, obsolete) To wait, linger.
Alle these xv knyghtes were knyghtes of the table round / Soo these with moo other came in to gyders / and bete on bak the kynge of Northumberland and the kynge of Northwalys / whan sir launcelot sawe this as he houed in a lytil leued woode / thenne he sayd vnto syre lauayn / see yonder is a company of good knyghtes 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter X, in Le Morte Darthur, book XVIII:
(intransitive, obsolete) To move on or by.
(dialectal, intransitive) To remain; delay.
(dialectal, intransitive) To remain stationary (usually on horseback).
From Middle English hoven, alteration (due to hove, hoven, past tense and past participle of heven (“to heave”)). More at heave.
Meanings
(dialectal, transitive) To raise; lift; hold up.
(dialectal, intransitive) To rise.
There was nothing else to do, and he was doing it to the best of his ability - having, in fact, fallen into a trance of admiration before a large meerschaum - when MacQuibble hove in sight on his way to the Life Class at the Gallery. 1913, Norman Lindsay, A Curate in Bohemia, Sydney: N.S.W. Bookstall Co., published 1932, page 150:
Astond he stood, and vp his haire did houe, / And with that suddein horror could no member moue. 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
This will become increasingly urgent as next year's General Election hoves into view. 2023 August 9, Nigel Harris, “Comment: Disinterested and dishonest”, in RAIL, number 989, page 3:
‘An’ th’ dumblasted rascal hed to go an’ git gay wi’ June. Dick turned to an’ hammered seven hells out o’ his mug an’ hove him out on deck—’ 1930, Captain Dingle, “In Conclusion” (chapter 34), in Seaworthy, Cambridge, Mass.: The Riverside Press, page 274:
Pretty soon he gapped and stretched himself and hove off the blanket, and it was Miss Watson's Jim! I bet I was glad to see him. 1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter VIII, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC: