upheave
Americanverb (used with object)
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to heave or lift up; raise up or aloft.
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to force or throw up violently or with much power, as an erupting volcano.
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to cause a major disturbance or disorder in.
The revolution upheaved the government, causing its leaders to flee the country.
verb (used without object)
verb
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to heave or rise upwards
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geology to thrust (land) upwards or (of land) to be thrust upwards
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(tr) to disturb violently; throw into disorder
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of upheave
First recorded in 1250–1300, upheave is from the Middle English word upheven. See up-, heave
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Brown rocks, left bare by the receding tide, upheave their slippery backs, heavily festooned with seaweed, and the broad level sands lie wet and glistening in the sun.
From Dorrien of Cranston by Mitford, Bertram
The frozen crust was seen to upheave: and, the next moment, the head of the fox, and afterwards his whole body, appeared above the surface.
From Popular Adventure Tales by Reid, Mayne
The Archimedian lever found a resting-place in his brain, and sundry of his thoughts seem not inapt to upheave the world.
From The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, September, 1851 by Various
One would have it stop, take heed, upheave....
From My Actor-Husband A true story of American stage life by Anonymous
Therefore a time would come when the elastic and explosive forces of the imprisoned gases would upheave this ponderous cover and drive out for themselves openings through tall chimneys.
From A Journey to the Interior of the Earth by Verne, Jules
“If I had known, I’d have had a heart attack,” he said also, a reference to a point when things went especially upheaved.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 1, 2022
The 2014 shooting of Michael Brown upheaved many things in the U.S., including the career of DeRay Mckesson, who quit his job as an educator to become a full-time activist.
From Slate ● Sep. 11, 2018
Her well-to-do lifestyle is upheaved by news of her husband leaving her for another woman.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 29, 2017
He traces the origin of petroleum to volcanic disturbances which in early geological times upheaved the water and land surface of the earth and killed immense quantities of fish.
From Time Magazine Archive
The Ice was not so upheaved and tormented as in the Fire-Hills region, but it was rotten.
From "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin
But as other states have led the way in upheaving their systems, Washington has been slow to follow suit.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 23, 2022
The first time I came to Hammars, I was barely a year old and knew nothing about the great and upheaving love that had brought me there.
From The New Yorker ● Dec. 10, 2018
"Seems as if it's goin' to be a hurricane," remarked old Andrew Clark, looking out across the upheaving waters.
From My Brave and Gallant Gentleman A Romance of British Columbia by Watson, Robert
From the highest hill, He gazes o'er the wild whose plains he spurned, And his eye kindles, and his breast expands, With an upheaving consciousness of might.
From In the Saddle A Collection of Poems on Horseback-Riding by Various
In a radical upheaving the people demand eternal principles on which to stand.
From The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years by Harper, Ida Husted
Then with the sobbing grief he strove, For he saw his name thereon; And the heart within his breast uphove As the pen’s tale now he won.
From Poems By the Way by Morris, William
The fire, communicating with a powder magazine, produced an explosion which uphove the buildings like an earthquake, and prostrated more than a third of a mile of the city walls.
From The Empire of Russia by Abbott, John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot)
"An island uphove by an earthquake," said I. "Great thunder!" he cried.
From Stories by English Authors: the Sea by Various
It lay, a black mass, and whether it was a vast huddle of weeds, or a great whale killed by the earthquake, or solid land uphove by the volcanic rupture, was not conjecturable.
From Stories by English Authors: the Sea by Various
Vast showers of splinters of ice fell as if from the sky, and rained like arrows through the smoke, but if there were any great blocks uphove they did not touch the ship.
From The Frozen Pirate by Russell, W. Clark (William Clark)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
