- to throw, especially to lift and throw with effort, force, or violence: The sailors began heaving the cargo overboard.I saw someone heave a brick through the window.
- to raise or lift with effort or force; hoist: He tried to heave the sledgehammer, but he wasn’t strong enough.
- to utter laboriously or painfully: He heaved a sigh.
- to cause to rise and fall with or as if with a swelling motion: She stood there weeping, sobs heaving her chest as she covered her face.
- to vomit; throw up: He heaved his breakfast before noon.
- Nautical.
- to move into a certain position or situation: to heave a vessel aback.
- to move in a certain direction: Heave the capstan around! Heave up the anchor!
- to haul or pull on (a rope, cable, line, etc.) with the hands, a winch, a capstan, or the like: Heave the anchor cable!
- to rise and fall in rhythmically alternate movements: The ship heaved and rolled in the swelling sea.
- to breathe with effort; pant: He sat there heaving and puffing from the exertion.
- to vomit or retch: The smell of the nearby meat processing plant made me heave.
- (of the ground, pavement, etc.) to rise as if thrust up; swell or bulge: The ground heaved and small fissures appeared for miles around.Repeated freezing and thawing will cause the pavement to heave.
- to pull or haul on a rope, cable, etc.: We heaved on the rope with all our might, but the log did not budge.
- to push, as on a capstan bar.
- Nautical.
- to move in a certain direction or into a certain position or situation: heave about;heave alongside;heave in stays.
- (of a vessel) to rise and fall on high waves, especially waves passing at right angles to the ship.
- an act or effort of lifting, pulling, or pushing: With one mighty heave they managed to haul the unconscious man into the boat.
- a throw, toss, or cast: With a great heave, she threw the stone out of the garden bed.
- the act of rejecting or expelling, or the attempt to do so: The politician narrowly survived a heave by his own party.
- an effortful act of vomiting, retching, coughing, or sighing: With a heave he coughed up the river water in his lungs.She turned away and bent over as a heave overcame her.
- the horizontal component of the apparent displacement resulting from a fault, measured in a vertical plane perpendicular to the strike.
- the rise and fall of the waves or swell of a sea: The ship’s motion is so stable, one doesn’t feel the heave of the ocean.
- a disease of horses, similar to asthma in human beings, characterized by difficult breathing.
- to careen (a vessel).
- heave out, Nautical.
- to shake loose (a reef taken in a sail).
- to loosen (a sail) from its gaskets in order to set it.
- heave to,
- to stop the headway of (a vessel), especially by bringing the head to the wind and trimming the sails so that they act against one another.
- to come to a halt.
- (an exclamation used by sailors, such as when heaving the anchor up.)
- to rise to view, such as from below the horizon: The ship hove in sight as dawn began to break.
- lead2 (def. 17).
- to lift or move with a great effort
- to throw (something heavy) with effort
- to utter (sounds, sighs, etc) or breathe noisily or unhappily
- to rise and fall or cause to rise and fall heavily
- (past tense and past participle hove) nautical
- to move or cause to move in a specified way, direction, or position
- (of a vessel) to pitch or roll
- to displace (rock strata, mineral veins, etc) in a horizontal direction
- to retch
- the act or an instance of heaving
- a fling
- the horizontal displacement of rock strata at a fault
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