Hove

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /həʊv/
• Rhymes: -əʊv

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.

Alternative forms

• huve, huff, houf Scotland

Full definition of hove

Verb

1. (obsolete, intransitive) To remain suspended in air, water etc.; to float, to hover.
• 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.7:As shee arrived on the roring shore,
  In minde to leape into the mighty maine,
  A little bote lay hoving her before ….
2. (obsolete, intransitive) To wait, linger.
• 1485, Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur, Book XVIII:Sir Launcelot saw thys, as he hoved in the lytyll leved wood ....
3. (obsolete, intransitive) To move on or by.
4. (intransitive, now chiefly dialectal) To remain; delay.
5. (intransitive, now chiefly dialectal) 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.

Verb

1. (transitive, now chiefly dialectal) To raise; lift; hold up.
2. (intransitive, now chiefly dialectal) To rise.
• 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, I.ii:Astond he stood, and vp his haire did houe,
  And with that suddein horror could no member moue.

Inflected forms.

Verb

1. (nautical)

   hove

   (past of heave)
2. (obsolete or dialectal)

   hove

   (past of heave)
• 1884: Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter VIIIPretty 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.

Synonyms

• heaved