Words

hove, n, v. and adj.

BEING BORN in Hove gave Ivy Compton-Burnett a lifetime's macabre material while Anthony Burgess, head down for six novels in a year, thought it full of those waiting to die (Lord Alfred Douglas's fate). Even so, Ringo Starr chose it for his honeymoon, and now the arrival of Fatboy Slim makes it a hot spot and any desirable property fetches half a million. This belies Hove's name, the Old English for shed.

Also suitably obsolete are the senses moderation and dregs, but fitting is the one of lingering; as are boats at anchor and birds hovering; and also, confusingly, soaring, for it is, in Johnson's phrase, "the preterite of heave". As for Fatboy Slim, he could revive the medieval expression - in Chaucer - for a fashionable dance: the hove-dance.