hoover
verb (used with object)
to clean with a vacuum cleaner.
hoover
1 American
[hoo-ver]
/ ˈhu vər /
verb (used with object)
(often initial capital letter)
hoovers,
present (3rd person singular)
hoovered,
past participle, past
hoovering
present participle
Hoover
2
American
[hoo-ver]
/ ˈhu vər /
noun
-
Herbert (Clark), 1874–1964, 31st president of the U.S. 1929–33.
-
J(ohn) Edgar, 1895–1972, U.S. government official: director of the FBI 1924–72.
-
Lou Henry, 1874–1944, U.S. First Lady 1929–33 (wife of Herbert Hoover).
-
a town in N central Alabama.
Hoover
1
British
/ ˈhuːvə /
noun
verb
-
to vacuum-clean (a carpet, furniture, etc)
-
to consume or dispose of (something) quickly and completely
he hoovered up his grilled fish
Hoover
2
British
/ ˈhuːvə /
noun
-
Herbert ( Clark ). 1874–1964, US statesman; 31st president of the US (1929–33). He organized relief for Europe during and after World War I, but as president he lost favour after his failure to alleviate the effects of the Depression
-
J ( ohn ) Edgar. 1895–1972, US lawyer: director of the FBI (1924–72). He used new scientific methods to combat crime, including the first fingerprint file
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
hooversimple
-
hooverssimple
-
have hooveredperfect
-
has hooveredperfect
-
am hooveringprogressive
-
are hooveringprogressive
-
is hooveringprogressive
-
have been hooveringperfect progressive
-
has been hooveringperfect progressive
Past
-
hooveredsimple
-
had hooveredperfect
-
was hooveringprogressive
-
were hooveringprogressive
-
had been hooveringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of hoover
First recorded in 1925–30; after the trademark of a vacuum cleaner manufacturer
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
New government rules now mean only a learner driver can book their own test, part of a crackdown on third party operators using bots to hoover up thousands of slots.
From BBC ● May 16, 2026
They also said the Roomba would enable Amazon to hoover up data and spy on Americans.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 18, 2025
Shoppers could face higher prices for phones, laptops and other gadgets next year, manufacturers and analysts warn, as AI data centres hoover up memory chips used in consumer electronics.
From Barron's ● Nov. 20, 2025
Rising land prices smother our ability to move, suppress fertility rates, stifle innovation, and hoover up resources that might be deployed elsewhere.
From Slate ● Nov. 4, 2025
I whinged that it didn't smell of anything, but she pointed out I wasn't the one who had to hoover and unpick the needles from the carpet.
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
I became a physician, then a professor and chief of neuroradiology at Stanford, and eventually a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026
Stanford’s Hoover Institution has housed former secretaries of State and national security advisors for decades.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2026
Commercial speculation is only one lobe of the American story; so too is public-spiritedness, of which there is no better example than Hoover Dam.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 27, 2026
He compared himself to both Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon.
From Salon ● Jun. 19, 2026
White sent Hoover a letter, asking if the filmmakers might want to talk to him about the case.
From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann
"I've got a friend who has had some for about eight years, and it's not maintenance-free because once a week she goes out and hoovers it," he added.
From BBC ● Apr. 24, 2026
It is the industry that hoovers up everything from veterinary clinics to newspapers, not necessarily to the benefit of either dog owners or journalists.
From Slate ● Dec. 12, 2024
The public health effort, dubbed “HHS Protect Now,” hoovers up vast amounts of data, including coronavirus test results, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as state and local sources.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 1, 2020
The eel detects this movement and hoovers up the prey.
From National Geographic ● Oct. 20, 2015
“That would be a resounding no,” Dad replies, then hoovers into the slice.
From "I'll Give You the Sun" by Jandy Nelson
Local papers faltered as the tech platforms hoovered up their advertising dollars.
From Salon ● Nov. 7, 2025
Then, covering our hair, we stepped inside and across perfectly hoovered crimson carpets and under chandeliers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 30, 2025
Along the way, it hoovered up $2bn in ticket sales, stimulated local economies and triggered seismic events.
From BBC ● Dec. 7, 2024
Facebook hoovered up Instagram and WhatsApp, and has shamelessly cloned features from Snapchat and TikTok.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 5, 2023
Rex got to the ball, hoovered it up, and started back towards Alex.
From "Eleven" by Tom Rogers
The PC is equipped with a central processing unit, graphics card, random-access memory and high-capacity storage — the very same equipment that multitrillion-dollar tech companies are now hoovering up to power their artificial-intelligence ambitions.
From MarketWatch ● May 23, 2026
One ETF hoovering assets suggests that some investors are also diversifying by flirting with non-capitalization-weighting strategies.
From Barron's ● Apr. 15, 2026
“For all the news about state budgets and immigration enforcement, people are just hoovering up” all the municipal bonds they can find, said Matt Fabian, president of Municipal Market Analytics.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 12, 2026
It’s harder for other shows to get in there when you have only a small handful of shows hoovering up all of the awards.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 10, 2025
But since Mother died Father hasn’t done any hoovering, so that is OK.
From "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" by Mark Haddon
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
