give someone the old heave-ho

verb

"give-someone-the-old-heave-ho" is a 24-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“give someone the old 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
29
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Alternative form of give someone the heave-ho.

Corpus desk

Index EN-give-someone-the-old-hea · give someone the old heave-ho · English

give someone the old heave-ho · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 29 letters
  • VOW-12 12 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.

Key facts for give someone the old heave-ho
PropertyValue
Headwordgive someone the old heave-ho
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechVerb
Letters29
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “give someone the old heave-ho” in English

give someone the old heave-horanks outside the top 100,000 English headwords, in the long tail of specialist, archaic, or seldom-used vocabulary, exactly the territory where a reader stops mid-sentence to double-check spelling.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

give someone the old heave-ho is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Alternative form of give someone the heave-ho.".

give someone the old heave-ho doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct English form is give someone the old heave-ho, spelled G-I-V-E- -S-O-M-E-O-N-E- -T-H-E- -O-L-D- -H-E-A-V-E---H-O.

Definition

  1. 1
    Alternative form of give someone the heave-ho.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how give someone the old heave-ho appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Possibly a lot of them gained entry because there were so many other strange bees in the hive, but once they started to load up and run, the natives joined with the old ones and gave them the old heave-ho.
  2. Now I won't have to explain to her what sort of friend you really were and why I gave you the old heave-ho.

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.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "give someone the old heave-ho"?
"give someone the old heave-ho" is spelled G-I-V-E- -S-O-M-E-O-N-E- -T-H-E- -O-L-D- -H-E-A-V-E---H-O.
What does "give someone the old heave-ho" mean?
As a verb, "give someone the old heave-ho" means: Alternative form of give someone the heave-ho.
What language does "give someone the old heave-ho" come from?
"give someone the old heave-ho" is a English word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list