heave
/ˈhiːv/ verb, noun
Forms heaves heaving heaved hove hoven heft
- verb (transitive) To lift with difficulty; to raise with some effort; to lift (a heavy thing). “We heaved the chest-of-drawers up to the second-floor landing.”
- verb (transitive) To throw, cast. “They hove rocks into the pond.”
- verb (intransitive) To rise and fall. “Her chest heaved with emotion.”
- verb (transitive) To utter with effort. “She heaved a sigh and stared out of the window.”
- verb (transitive, nautical) To pull up with a rope or cable. “Heave up the anchor there, boys!”
- verb (transitive, archaic) To lift (generally); to raise, or cause to move upwards (particularly in ships or vehicles) or forwards.
- verb (intransitive) To be thrown up or raised; to rise upward, as a tower or mound.
- verb (transitive, mining, geology) To displace (a vein, stratum).
- noun (countable) An effort to raise something, such as a weight or one's own body, or to move something heavy. “We gave one more heave and the wall toppled over at last.”
- noun An upward motion; a rising; a swell or distention, as of the breast in difficult breathing, of the waves, of the earth in an earthquake, etc.
- noun A horizontal dislocation in a metallic lode, taking place at an intersection with another lode.
- noun (nautical) The measure of extent to which a nautical vessel goes up and down in a short period of time.
- noun An effort to vomit; retching.
- noun (rare, only used attributively as in "heave line" or "heave horse") Broken wind in horses.
- noun (cricket) A forceful shot in which the ball follows a high trajectory
Synonyms
heft upheave fling hurl bung cast chuck chunk cook dash dump feck jerk hield hoy huck hurtle launch lob peck heaving retch lift raise billow surge heave up heft up pant puff
Etymology
From Middle English heven, hebben, from Old English hebban, from Proto-West Germanic *habbjan, from Proto-Germanic *habjaną (“to take up, lift”), from Proto-Indo-European *kapyéti, from the root *kap-. See also have.
Cognate with West Frisian heffe, Dutch heffen ("to raise", "to lift"), German heben ("to raise", "to lift"), Danish hæve ("to raise", "to lift"), Albanian kap (“to grasp, seize”), Old Irish cáin (“law, tribute”), cacht (“prisoner”), Latin capiō (“to take”), Latvian kàmpt (“to seize”), Ancient Greek κάπτω (káptō, “to gulp down”), κώπη (kṓpē, “handle”)).
(To lift, to raise): Compare typologically Russian поднима́ть (podnimátʹ), подня́ть (podnjátʹ) (akin to има́ть (imátʹ), име́ть (imétʹ) < Proto-Slavic *jьmati, *jьměti).
Webster’s 1913
- verb To cause to move upward or onward by a lifting effort; to lift; to raise; to hoist; --often with up; as, the wave heaved the boat on land.
- verb To throw; to cast; --obsolete, provincial, or colloquial, except in certain nautical phrases; as, to heave the lead; to heave the log.
- verb To be thrown up or raised; to rise upward, as a tower or mound.
- verb To rise and fall with alternate motions, as the lungs in heavy breathing, as waves in a heavy sea, as ships on the billows, as the earth when broken up by frost, etc.; to swell; to dilate; to expand; to distend; hence, to labor; to struggle.
Etymology [OE. heven, hebben, As. hebban; akin to OS. hebbian, D. heffen, OHG. heffan, hevan, G. heven, Icel. häfva, Dan. hæve, Goth. hafjan, L. capere to take, seize; cf. Gr. Accept, Behoof, Capacious, Forceps, haft, Receipt.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “heave”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details