hover

Hover comes from Middle English hoveren, itself from an earlier hoven, meaning to soar high or stay suspended. Hoven likely traces back to Old English forms of hebban, "to lift, raise," ultimately rooted in a Proto-Indo-European word for holding or seizing.

The word grew by attaching a frequentative ending -er- to the older verb hove, which meant to remain suspended, float, or linger and wait. That repeated, ongoing sense — doing something again and again — is what gives hover its quality of sustained, restless suspension rather than a single lift.

Hover shares roots with hove, the older English verb for lingering or staying suspended, which it eventually displaced in most everyday use.