hoover

CEFRC1

/ˈhuːvə(ɹ)/

verb · noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

01
verb
To clean floors using a vacuum cleaner.
02
verb
Extra detail
A number of places in the United States:, A city in Jefferson County and Shelby County, Alabama, incorporated in 1967 and named after William H. Hoover.

Examples

She bought a Hoover at the supermarket.
They blamed President Hoover for their situation.

At a glance

Sits at C1 on the CEFR scale

Senses: 5
Parts of speech: 2
Citations: 5
Synonyms: 1

Also pronounced

/ˈhuvɚ/

Deep Dive

verb

Extra meanings

To suck in or inhale, as if by a vacuum cleaner.
To clean (a room, etc.) with a vacuum cleaner, irrespective of the brand.

noun

Extra meaning

A vacuum cleaner, irrespective of brand.

More examples

In context

Using the hoover would just be a waste of electricity.
I'd hoover, iron or dust, but I hated doing windows.
In the freshly hoovered living room of her house in Wokingham, Thelma Dawnton was distinctly miffed.

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

She decided to blank the entire living room carpet with a vacuum.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Citations

The word in print, with each source given in full.

I helped Mum tidy up and watched while she Hoovered the carpet.
1976, Robert Leeson, The Demon Bike Rider, London: Collins, →ISBN, page 65
After another hour, I had Hoovered the carpet and emptied the dustbin, and we all sat down to watch vintage home movies.
1984 February 22, Hunter Davies, “Father’s Day”, in Punch, volume 286, number 7473, Punch Publications Ltd., page 33, column 3
'You're probably thinking I'm a slob,' said Lister, finishing off a quintuple-thick milkshake and hoovering around the base with the straw.
1989, Grant Naylor, Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers
Then there is the little-known family of organisms called hantaviruses, which swarm in the micro-haze above the feces of mice and rats and are hoovered into the human respiratory system by anyone unlucky enough to stick a breathing orifice near them—by lying down, say, on a sleeping platform over which infected mice have recently scampered.
1998, Bill Bryson, chapter 1, in A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, New York, N.Y.: Anchor Books, →ISBN, page 8
The early models of famine early warning systems adopted the approach of gathering all possible (or measurable) indicators, adding them up and deducing vulnerability. This was termed the hoovering approach—vulnerability was the weight of the bag after vacuuming up everything in sight (hoovering is the British word for vacuuming).
2003, Thomas E. Downing, “Lessons from Famine Early Warning and Food Security for Understanding Adaptation to Climate Change: Toward a Vulnerability/Adaptation Science?”, in Joel B. Smith, Richard J. T. Klein, Saleemul Huq, editors, Climate Change, Adaptive Capacity and Development, London: Imperial College Press, →ISBN, pages 72–73

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Origin

verb

The surname is an anglicization of German Huber or Low German Hufer, originally designating a landowner or a prosperous small-scale farmer. The common noun and verb are taken from the brand name of one of the first vacuum cleaners (see hoover).

Deep Dive

verb

noun

More examples

Related

Quick test

She decided to blank— the entire living room carpet with a vacuum.

Nearby

Origin

verb

She decided to blank the entire living room carpet with a vacuum.