The German and (ironically?) Hungarian translations both use "air-pillow" for the hovering part, though in German they translated it as "vehicle" and in Hungarian as "boat." Go figure.
[edit] "air-pillow" is presumably meant to be read as "air-cushioned" but in both cases the actual word was "pillow"
"Kissen" (German for "pillow") and "cushion" have the same origin. The old french word "cuissin", meaning "cushion for the hip" (comes from "coxa" which is "hip" in Latin).
"Pillow" apparently comes from the old Germanic word "pyle" or "pylu" which is based on the Latin word "pulvinus" (meaning "cushion").
If you look at the other Germanic languages, most use either "vehicle" or "boat".
As a native speaker born far away from any body of water, I would have said that you could use "Luftkissenboot" and "Luftkissenfahrzeug" interchangeably but the German Wikipedia article disagrees. "Vehicle" apparently implies that it doesn't only need to work on water.
[edit] "air-pillow" is presumably meant to be read as "air-cushioned" but in both cases the actual word was "pillow"