heave

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English heven, also hebben,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English hebban (“to lift, raise; exalt”),^[5][6][7] a strong verb with the past tense hōf and the past participle hafen,^[5][2] from Proto-Germanic *habjaną.^[1] It is cognate with Old Saxon hebbian, Dutch heffen, Old High German heffen, German heben, Old Norse hefja and Gothic 𐌷𐌰𐍆𐌾𐌰𐌽 (hafjan, “to lift, raise”).^[8][5][4][9] The Germanic verb corresponds to Latin capiō (“to take”) and comes from Proto-Indo-European *kap- (“to grasp, seize”),^{[8][5][10][11][12]} so English capable and capture come from the same root through Latin.^[11] Heft, haft and heavy are from the same Germanic base.^[11][13] Etymonline and Klein connect have as well,^[5][14] Ayto only as a possibility,^[11] and Skeat rejected the connection.^[15]

Earliest recorded meaning

To lift, to raise: Old English hebban is recorded from about 725, in Beowulf, according to Barnhart,^[4] and the OED's first quotation for this general sense is from the Blickling Homilies.^[8] The Middle English verb appears before 1200, also in the sense of raising a sword or an object high, in Laȝamon's Brut.^[4][2]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline suggests a development from "take, take hold of" to "lift".^[5] In Old English and Middle English the verb also had figurative senses, to exalt someone in feeling or rank,^[8][6] and a church one, to lift a child from the font, hence to stand sponsor or baptize.^[8][9] Another use, to lift and carry off, became thieves' slang for "to rob" and was still in the cant dictionaries in the 19th century.^[8][16][17] The Old Testament heave offering keeps the idea of lifting.^[18][3] The meanings that now dominate, to throw and to haul, are 16th- and 17th-century developments,^[11][7][5] the second of them nautical,^[5][16] and in current use the verb implies great effort: the OED records "to lift with exertion" separately, from Pope's Iliad of 1715, and treats the plain sense "to lift" as archaic or dialectal.^[8] Weekley derives the sense of retching from to heave the gorge, in Othello, where the verb still means to lift or raise, as in to heave a sigh.^[18] American slang had heave for "to vomit" from 1862.^[17] The noun, from the verb, is recorded from before 1571.^[8][4] Johnson (1755) listed for it an upward effort, the rising of the breast and the effort to vomit.^[19] Etymonline records the heave for a dismissal by 1944.^[5] In Lancashire dialect the verb meant to retch, and in Cornwall heave out was to dig up.^[20]

Timeline

• c. 725 – hebban, to lift, raise, in Beowulf.^[4]
• c. 1175 – to lift a child from the font; to stand sponsor to, baptize (obsolete after 1571).^[8]
• before 1240 – to lift and carry off (obsolete after 1657).^[8]
• c. 1300 – hevelow, a nautical chant in lifting, the earlier form of heave-ho.^[5]
• early 14th century – intransitive, to be raised or forced up.^[5]
• 1567 – thieves' cant, to rob.^[16]
• before 1571 – noun, an act of heaving; a lift or effort.^[8][4]
• 1590s – to throw.^[5]
• 1601 – to retch.^[16] Etymonline has about 1600.^[5]
• 1626 – nautical, to haul or pull with a rope or at a capstan.^[16][5]
• 1627 – to rise and fall, as waves or the chest in deep breathing.^[16] Etymonline dates this to the 1610s.^[5]
• 1715 – to lift something heavy with effort.^[8]
• 1728 – to displace a vein or stratum.^[16]
• 1802 – noun, in mining and geology, a horizontal displacement at a fault.^[8]
• 1828 – plural noun, the heaves, a disease of horses.^[8] The Shorter Oxford dates it to the late 18th century.^[9]

Meanings

Verb

1. To lift or move something with great effort: They heaved the crate onto the truck.^[21][3][8]
2. To throw something heavy with effort: He heaved the sack over the wall.^[21][3][9]
3. To utter a sound or breath with effort: to heave a sigh.^[21][3]
4. To rise and fall rhythmically, or make something do so: Her chest heaved after the climb.^[21][16]
5. To retch or vomit.^[3][16][17]
6. To swell or bulge upward.^[3][16]
7. (nautical) To haul or pull with a rope or capstan; of a ship, to move in a given direction: to heave in sight.^[21][16][9] In this use the past form is often hove.^[21][9]
8. (geology) To displace a vein or stratum.^[21][3][16]
9. (obsolete, Old English–1642) To raise or exalt in rank or feeling.^[8][3]
10. (obsolete, 1175–1571) To lift a child from the font; to stand sponsor to, or to baptize.^[8][3][9]
11. (obsolete, 1240–1657) To lift and carry off.^[8][3][9]

Noun

1. An effort to lift or move something heavy: One more heave and the stump came free.^[3][8]
2. An act of throwing.^[3]
3. A rising motion, especially a rhythmical one, as of the chest or the waves.^[3][8][9]
4. An effort to vomit.^[9][19]
5. (geology) The horizontal displacement of a vein or rock stratum at a fault.^[3][8][9]
6. heaves (plural): a chronic lung disease of horses, with laboured breathing; broken wind.^[3][8][9]

Word family

• heaver
• heaveless
• heave-ho
• upheave
• upheaval
• frost heave

Related words

• heavy
• heft
• hefty
• haft
• have
• capable
• capture

Usage notes

The past tense and past participle are normally heaved, and hove is chiefly nautical.^[21][9] Merriam-Webster also has hoven as an archaic and dialectal participle.^[3] Weak forms had already appeared in late Old English, and they prevailed.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
7. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ a b c d e Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
12. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
13. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
14. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
15. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
16. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
17. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
18. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
19. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
20. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
21. ^ a b c d e f g h Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins