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:
We live on a volcanic mass, which at any moment may upheave and blow us to glory without the benefit of the clergy, the most of whom are in the army of Dixie.
From The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, June, 1862 Devoted To Literature and National Policy by Various
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
You will find the smaller communities living along in unison with the seasons, having neither extreme poverty nor wealth—none of the violent plagues of upheave and unrest which afflict our great populations.
From My Life and Work by Henry Ford
I never did, and many years went by; Then, near a Southern port, one Christmas Eve, I watched a gale go roaring through the sky, Making the cauldrons of the clouds upheave.
From Georgian Poetry 1913-15 by Sir Edward Howard Marsh
Three days they ride that country, and many a city leave, But the fourth dawn mighty mountains by the inner sea upheave.
From The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs by William Morris
“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
But the newly upheaved anagram did not articulate intelligently.
From Time Magazine Archive
We seem to be living through the biologic revolution, so far anyway, without being upheaved or even much disturbed by it.
From "The Lives of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas
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
The upheaving force does not appear to have acted at one point, but along a line traversing the Val del Bove.
From Etna A History of the Mountain and of its Eruptions by G. F. Rodwell
"A pretty considerable upheaving of the elements of social life, Mr. Grant," said he, upon encountering the old gentleman on Ferret's steps at the front door of The Hero.
From Quodlibet by John Pendleton Kennedy
There came a rush—an upheaving of the waters, which flung her high into the darkness—a blow that made her little bark quake in all its timbers—a plunge—a black rush of waters.
From Mabel's Mistake by Ann S. (Ann Sophia) Stephens
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 W. Clark (William Clark) Russell
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 William Morris
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 & Love Is Enough by William Morris
"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
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.
