hover fly

British

noun

any dipterous fly of the family Syrphidae, with a typically hovering flight, esp Syrphus ribesii, which mimics a wasp

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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.

As a boy, I thought the common hover fly was a clownishly bad mimic of a bee.

From Washington Post • Jan. 30, 2018

The indispensable element of a copter is the rotor, which enables it to take off and land on a dime, hover, fly in any direction, land on a dead engine.

From Time Magazine Archive

It could hover, fly straight ahead, and make sharp turns.

From The Flying Saucers are Real by Keyhoe, Donald E. (Donald Edward)

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023