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

Landing Skubal in exchange for a trio of promising prospects isn’t a Hail Mary heave.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 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

But with a final heave of the digger bucket, a shower of gold was released from the soil.

From BBC ● Apr. 25, 2026

It is this that has led Sir Keir and the Foreign Secretary, Yvette Cooper, to give Sir Olly Robbins the heave ho.

From BBC ● Apr. 16, 2026

I put my shoulder to the footrest of the chair and heave, grunting as I push the chair toward the door.

From "Love, Hate & Other Filters" by Samira Ahmed

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

From BBC ● May 7, 2025

Cronin is loved for building teams that improve with the schedule, fight till the finish, and have been a couple of last-second Gonzaga heaves from seriously competing for a national title.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 25, 2025

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

From National Geographic ● Jan. 23, 2024

The map, the early morning, the letter that has traveled through the night to be delivered: A narrative heaves underneath the silence of the scene.

From New York Times ● May 25, 2023

His shirt is covered in soot, and he coughs and heaves.

From "The Hate U Give" by Angie Thomas

“Everything was packed here for when the research missions were supposed to come back,” Al-Sanusi said, as Al-Abideen heaved a jammed container door open.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 2026

The first free-hit was heaved over cow corner for six, the second free-hit was swatted over long-on to bring up a 39-ball half-century and another maximum was slotted over the leg-side fence.

From BBC ● Jul. 4, 2026

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

She stretched over and passed the vine to Seven and Valley, and heaved.

From "Witchlings" by Claribel A. Ortega

Racism has been a feature of American history since the first slave ship hove to off Jamestown in 1619.

From Salon ● Aug. 9, 2025

As the band of Midvale Steel and Ordnance Company hove into sight, the first airplanes were seen overhead.

From Slate ● Jun. 20, 2020

“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

Just as Farage was explaining the purpose of his demonstration to the assembled media, another vessel hove alongside—to wit, a white pleasure cruiser by the name of Sarpedon.

From The New Yorker ● Jun. 23, 2016

So their talk ran on, while down the coast, and round toward Ithaka, hove the good ship that had gone out to Pylos bearing Telemakhos and his companions.

From "The Odyssey" by Homer

Even Jofra Archer got involved, heaving two sixes of his own.

From BBC ● Sep. 10, 2026

The place was heaving with devotees, hands clasped at their chests and lips moving.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 6, 2026

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

A heaving Murrayfield, the Scots with their backs to the wall, England on a mighty roll, a shot at redemption.

From BBC ● Feb. 11, 2026

In less than an hour, the men are heaving their buckets of mixed rocks back into their truck.

From "The Last Cuentista" by Donna Barba Higuera

Related Words

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