heave
/hiːv
/verb (past and past participle heaved or chiefly Nautical hove /həʊv/)
1 [with object and adverbial of direction] Lift or haul (something heavy) with great effort: she heaved the sofa back into place he heaved himself out of bed...
- I heaved myself up and hauled my bag back onto my shoulders.
- By the time I heaved myself into action, lifting Harry carefully and putting him down on my nicely warmed chair the fireworks had finished and the night was quiet once more.
- Bastian heaved himself to a sitting position with much effort.
Synonyms
haul, pull, lug, manhandle, drag, draw, tug;
lift, raise, hoist, heft
informal hump, yank
rare upheave
1.1 informal Throw (something heavy): she heaved half a brick at him...
- Every day in every way there's enough to make one throw the newspaper across the room, heave a brick at the television set.
- So he heaved a brick though the glass and grabbed it.
- If you want to reach the disaffected youths who take to the streets to heave bricks at the police, you need to have a dialogue.
Synonyms
throw, fling, cast, toss, hurl, lob, pitch, send, dash, let fly
informal bung, chuck, sling
North American informal peg
Australian informal hoy
New Zealand informal bish
2 [with object] Produce (a sigh): he heaved a euphoric sigh of relief...
- John knelt and checked for a pulse, he heaved a sigh of relief when he found one, Jim wouldn't die just yet.
- The second man heaved a sigh that was mocking in its false regret.
- Breathing hard, Jacob simply stared for a few more seconds before I heaved a harsh sigh and tugged off my headphones.
Synonyms
let out, breathe, give, sigh, gasp, emit, utter
3 [no object] Rise and fall rhythmically or spasmodically: his shoulders heaved as he panted...
- Her head bowed low, hair falling over her face, and her shoulders heaved.
- Perhaps because of this, I felt acutely conscious of the way my shoulders were heaving, a rapid and seemingly exaggerated flapping motion.
- He has his face in his hands, his shoulders heaving.
Synonyms
rise and fall, roll, swell, surge, churn, boil, seethe, swirl, billow
3.1Make an effort to vomit; retch: my stomach heaved...
- He spent the next few minutes bent in half, but even after his stomach was completely empty he continued to retch and heave but bring nothing up.
- My stomach heaved and I ran to the toilet, retching and crying.
- Her stomach clenched suddenly, heaving, and she had her answer.
Synonyms
vomit, retch, gag, bring up, cough up;
British be sick;
North American get sick
informal throw up, puke, chunder, chuck up, hurl, spew, do the technicolor yawn, keck
British informal honk, sick up
Scottish informal boke
North American informal spit up, barf, upchuck, toss one's cookies, blow chunks
4 [with object] Nautical Pull, raise, or move (a boat or ship) by hauling on a rope or ropes: Martin thought he might be able to heave the lifeboat in closer...
- He hired hundreds of labourers to heave a large boat, a passenger ferry, over a mountain in the Andes.
- Finally I jump ashore and heave my boat out and carry it over the levee.
- Where there was no obvious launch point George - adrenaline-charged - would heave the boat over walls or railings and clamber in.
noun
1An act of heaving: with that last heave, Maurice’s anchor wrenched clear of the mud...
- It is characterised with gentle hand movements, a distinctive heave of the torso and soft walk.
- The vomiting soon turned into dry heaves, then coughs finally transforming into heart wrenching, soul shaking sobs.
- Zane was struggling, his breaths coming in short heaves and his face turning red.
2 Geology A sideways displacement in a fault.In most, if not all, cases it is clear that volumetric contraction has occurred with horizontal contraction of the sediments complementing the heave of the faults....
- Many of these faults are characterized by heaves ranging from several to tens of kilometres.
- Entrance is signalled by a change of material, where the whole of the lower storey seems to shift to the right as if following some sort of geological heave.
3 (heaves) another term for COPD in horses.
Phrases
heave in sight (or into view)
Phrasal verbs
heave to
Derivatives
heaver
/ noun ...- Back in Philadelphia, by 1836, a general strike led by Irish coal heavers succeeded in securing a working day lasting from 6am until 6pm, with two hours allowed for meals.
- The garbage being heaved out the car windows to the roadside says a lot about the heavers.
Origin
Old English hebban, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch heffen and German heben 'lift up'.
hefty from mid 19th century:
This was originally a US dialect word formed from late Middle English heft ‘the weight of someone’, which came from Old English heave, also the source of Old English heavy. Heave-ho (Late Middle English) was originally a nautical expression, used when hauling a rope.