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Glite Dictionary
💪 To lift with effort 💪 A hard lift 😮‍💨 To sigh deeply 🌊 To rise and fall 🤢 To retch 🤢 A retching spasm ⬆️ To bulge upward 🌊 A rising motion 🪨 A sideways shift
to heave

to heave

14 5.3
To rise and fall in a regular way like waves
  • verb
  • /hiv/
: agitarse
  • Even in westerly Malibu the sun has moved on, leaving the vast and tireless sea to heave itself blindly upon the shore.

A tilting planet heaving with our abuse and overuse.

Examples

  • "The wild waters roar and heave."

    Shakespeare in Love (1998)

  • The logs and tree trunks began to heave as if in a heavy sea.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • The twisted olive trees seem to struggle to maintain their hold in the heaving landscape.

    Academic text (1993)

  • Wulfgar took a deep breath, his great chest heaving, to steady himself.

    Fiction book (1992)

  • Soon the palace heaved with gold, and Midas's delirious laughter echoed off the walls.

  • Clutching her handbag to her heaving breast, Miss Todd hurries to the path.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • The waves began to heave as the storm approached the shore.

  • During the earthquake, the ground started to heave violently beneath our feet.

  • As the tide came in, the ocean would heave rhythmically against the rocky cliffs.

Synonyms

to wave
vsto heave
27 1.0

To move with a smooth up and down motion, like a flag or the sea

is a rhythmic swelling rise and fall often of water or large bodies
to billow
vsto heave
24 5.3

To rise and move in large, wave-like shapes, like smoke or cloth

is a rhythmic rise and fall instead of only outward swelling motion

Antonyms

to settle
729 2.8

To become calm and still after movement or excitement

to sink
104 1.0

To go down below the surface of water and become underwater

Idioms

to give the heave-ho
  • Informal
6 8.5

To tell someone to leave their job or to stop using something

Phrasal Verbs

to heave up
  • Informal
2 4.5

To lift something heavy with a lot of effort

Compounds

frost heave
  • UK
1 8.0

Soil or road that rises when water in the ground freezes and expands

How Big

to surge
52 4.1
to heave
14 5.3
to billow
24 5.3
to undulate
14 7.7
to lap
14 3.0
ripple
28 2.6

Surface Forms

heave infinitive
heaved past
heaved past participle
heaving present participle
heaves third person singular

Etymology

Heave comes from the old English hebban 'to lift', and the image of 'lifting' helps here too because waves or a chest that heaves are rising and falling in a strong, rolling way. So to heave can mean to move up and down like big waves or deep breathing.