give someone the heave-ho
"give-someone-the-heave-ho" is a 21-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“give someone the heave-ho” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 25
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To fire, expel or break up with someone.
Corpus desk
Index EN-give-someone-the-heave-h · give someone the heave-ho · English
give someone the heave-ho · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 25 letters
- VOW-11 11 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "G" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | give someone the heave-ho |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 25 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “give someone the heave-ho” in English
Rare enough to double-check
give someone the heave-ho is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for give someone the heave-ho, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is give someone the heave-ho, spelled G-I-V-E- -S-O-M-E-O-N-E- -T-H-E- -H-E-A-V-E---H-O.
Definition
- 1To fire, expel or break up with someone.
- 2To eject a player or manager from the game.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how give someone the heave-ho appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
I'm looking for work again because they gave me the heave-ho.
I accused her in set terms of giving me the heave-ho in order that she could mercenarily marry a richer man.
Synonyms
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.