heave

American  

[heev] / hiv /

verb (used with object)

• heaves,
  present (3rd person singular)
• heaved,
  past participle,  past
• hove,
  past participle,  past
• heaving
  present participle

1. to throw, especially to lift and throw with effort, force, or violence.

   The sailors began heaving the cargo overboard.

   I saw someone heave a brick through the window.

   Synonyms:

   sling, cast, fling, pitch, hurl

2. to raise or lift with effort or force; hoist.

   He tried to heave the sledgehammer, but he wasn’t strong enough.

   Synonyms:

   elevate

3. to utter laboriously or painfully.

   He heaved a sigh.

4. to cause to rise and fall with or as if with a swelling motion.

   She stood there weeping, sobs heaving her chest as she covered her face.

5. to vomit; throw up.

   He heaved his breakfast before noon.

6. Nautical.

   1. to move into a certain position or situation.

      to heave a vessel aback.

   2. to move in a certain direction.

      Heave the capstan around! Heave up the anchor!

7. to haul or pull on (a rope, cable, line, etc.) with the hands, a winch, a capstan, or the like.

   Heave the anchor cable!

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verb (used without object)

• heaves,
  present (3rd person singular)
• heaved,
  past participle,  past
• hove,
  past participle,  past
• heaving
  present participle

1. to rise and fall in rhythmically alternate movements.

   The ship heaved and rolled in the swelling sea.

2. to breathe with effort; pant.

   He sat there heaving and puffing from the exertion.

3. to vomit or retch.

   The smell of the nearby meat processing plant made me heave.

4. (of the ground, pavement, etc.) to rise as if thrust up; swell or bulge.

   The ground heaved and small fissures appeared for miles around.

   Repeated freezing and thawing will cause the pavement to heave.

   Synonyms:

   billow, surge

5. to pull or haul on a rope, cable, etc..

   We heaved on the rope with all our might, but the log did not budge.

6. to push, as on a capstan bar.

7. Nautical.

   1. to move in a certain direction or into a certain position or situation.

      heave about;

      heave alongside;

      heave in stays.

   2. (of a vessel) to rise and fall on high waves, especially waves passing at right angles to the ship.

noun

• heaves
  plural

1. an act or effort of lifting, pulling, or pushing.

   With one mighty heave they managed to haul the unconscious man into the boat.

2. a throw, toss, or cast.

   With a great heave, she threw the stone out of the garden bed.

3. Informal. the act of rejecting or expelling, or the attempt to do so.

   The politician narrowly survived a heave by his own party.

4. an effortful act of vomiting, retching, coughing, or sighing.

   With a heave he coughed up the river water in his lungs.

   She turned away and bent over as a heave overcame her.

5. Geology. the horizontal component of the apparent displacement resulting from a fault, measured in a vertical plane perpendicular to the strike.

6. the rise and fall of the waves or swell of a sea.

   The ship’s motion is so stable, one doesn’t feel the heave of the ocean.

7. Also called broken wind.  (used with a singular verb) heaves, a disease of horses, similar to asthma in human beings, characterized by difficult breathing.

verb phrase

1. heave to

   1. Nautical. to stop the headway of (a vessel), especially by bringing the head to the wind and trimming the sails so that they act against one another.

   2. to come to a halt.

2. heave down to careen (a vessel).

3. heave out

   1. to shake loose (a reef taken in a sail).

   2. to loosen (a sail) from its gaskets in order to set it.

idioms

1. heave ho, (an exclamation used by sailors, such as when heaving the anchor up.)

2. heave the lead. lead.

3. heave in sight, to rise to view, such as from below the horizon.

   The ship hove in sight as dawn began to break.

heave British  

/ hiːv /

verb

1. (tr) to lift or move with a great effort

2. (tr) to throw (something heavy) with effort

3. to utter (sounds, sighs, etc) or breathe noisily or unhappily

   to heave a sigh

4. to rise and fall or cause to rise and fall heavily

5. (past tense and past participle hove) nautical

   1. to move or cause to move in a specified way, direction, or position

      to heave in sight

   2. (intr) (of a vessel) to pitch or roll

6. (tr) to displace (rock strata, mineral veins, etc) in a horizontal direction

7. (intr) to retch

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noun

1. the act or an instance of heaving

2. a fling

3. the horizontal displacement of rock strata at a fault

Synonym Usage

See raise.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• heaver
  noun
• heaveless
  adjective
• unheaved
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• heaves
  plural

Participles

• heaving
  present
• heaved
  past
• hove
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• heave
  simple
• heaves
  simple
• have heaved
  perfect
• have hove
  perfect
• has heaved
  perfect
• has hove
  perfect
• am heaving
  progressive
• are heaving
  progressive
• is heaving
  progressive
• have been heaving
  perfect progressive
• has been heaving
  perfect progressive

Past

• heaved
  simple
• hove
  simple
• had heaved
  perfect
• had hove
  perfect
• was heaving
  progressive
• were heaving
  progressive
• had been heaving
  perfect progressive

Future

• will heave
  simple
• will have heaved
  perfect
• will have hove
  perfect
• will be heaving
  progressive
• will have been heaving
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of heave

First recorded before 900; Middle English heven, variant (with -v- from simple past tense and past participle) of hebben, Old English hebban; cognate with German heben, Old Norse hefja, Gothic hafjan; akin to Latin capere “to take”

Explanation

When you heave something, you haul or lift a heavy object. You might not realize how fat your cat has become until you have to heave him out of the way to make room for yourself on the sofa. You heave a heavy object when you lift it, like when you heave piles of wet snow out of your driveway with a shovel, and you can heave yourself out of bed in the morning, if it takes a huge effort to get yourself into a vertical position. You can even heave a heavy sigh, which simply means you sigh loudly. To vomit is also sometimes described as heaving, describing the unpleasant effort of your stomach muscles.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

heave heaves heaved hove heaving

Pans heave with labor-intensive dishes like çalkama, a Turkish pastry, and yaprak sarma, grapevine leaves filled by hand with a mixture of rice, onions, tomatoes and herbs.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 11, 2026

At one point, Nelson appears to snatch the other driver’s sunglasses from his forehead and heave them across the parking lot.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 10, 2026

Stokes had added 50 from 36 balls with Ben Duckett when he aimed a heave at Foulkes and was caught by Mitchell.

From BBC ● Jun. 28, 2026

Seattle trailed 12-7 when quarterback Russell Wilson unleashed a desperate heave to the end zone in the final seconds.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 31, 2026

As if from a great distance, Luke heard Jen's father heave a sigh and blow his nose in a businesslike way.

From "Among the Hidden" by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Malak heaves and leaks tears, stuffs a tattered tissue into the corners of her eyes.

From BBC ● May 7, 2025

With each of their heaves, the rope squeaked and the branch above bounced precariously.

From National Geographic ● Jan. 23, 2024

Mother and son are each maneuvered, bunraku-style, by up to three puppeteers at once, animated by a combination of intricate movement and vocalizations that include not just dialogue, but grunts, sighs and heaves of effort.

From New York Times ● Dec. 5, 2023

Every few minutes, as if on command, it felt like the entire gym quieted in between their heaves just to watch a master at work.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2023

The bioloaf paste in my stomach heaves back up.

From "The Last Cuentista" by Donna Barba Higuera

Von Allmen, however, was a picture of celebration after his storming run, the large number of baying Swiss fans in the packed tribune wildly applauding their hero, flags waved, cowbells heaved and air horns blown.

From Barron's ● Feb. 11, 2026

On a recent day, she heaved a 10-pound bag of frozen chicken from Costco onto her kitchen counter, then boiled breasts with onion powder and garlic powder.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 31, 2026

Every Navy officer I knew heaved a huge sigh of relief.

From Slate ● Dec. 23, 2025

However, Clark was set for the slower ball again and, when Mills put it on a length, he heaved the ball over mid-wicket.

From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2025

A pang of exquisite suffering—a throe of true despair—rent and heaved my heart.

From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë

“The jury is still out,” said Luc Van den hove, chief executive of the Belgium-based chip research center Imec.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 12, 2016

The same day, Monroe’s ship hove into sight of the French coast.

From Slate ● Aug. 6, 2015

The dark mouths of mines now hove into view, in all sizes and states of dilapidation.

From The New Yorker ● Apr. 13, 2015

Madeleine Begun Kane http://www.madkane.com, Bayside, Queens, NY The wealthy gathered in droves, While to them a hurricane hove.

From Salon ● Sep. 11, 2012

Slumber, soft and deep like the still sleep of death, weighed on his eyes as the ship hove seaward.

From "The Odyssey" by Homer

And it wasn’t lost on Rove that the spindly, excitable man narrating that story for them in a thick Hungarian accent “was once a 16-year-old picking up paving blocks and heaving them at Soviet tanks.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 12, 2026

De Angelis and Waltz are also a hoot together, she as a heaving, hissing vampire bride who can’t stop licking her chops, he as a bone-dry vampire hunter dedicated to his investigation.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 6, 2026

An antidote to shoutier, perhaps less truly confident cities, there is an old joke that the local tourist board motto is: "Don't tell anyone or the place will be heaving."

From BBC ● Sep. 13, 2025

Then Brooks shifts into the light thriller she’s teased since the opening notes of heaving, scratchy violins.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2025

His face less crazy but his chest still heaving in and out and heaving in and out and heaving in and out.

From "We Were Here" by Matt De La Peña

Related Words

• breathe
• exhale
• groan
• huff
• puff
• spew
• vomit