heave
/hiːv/
"heave" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“heave” has 6 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #32,841. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #32,841
- frequency rank, English
- 2,646
- “H” headwords
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To lift with difficulty; to raise with some effort; to lift (a heavy thing).
Corpus desk
Index EN-heave · heave · English
heave · rank #32,841 · 6 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #32,841
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 6 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,646
- PHOTO-FINISH Healey
Nearest frequency peer: Healey (-1 rank slots)
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.
Frequency neighbourhood for “heave”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- hairless
hairless
67,163 corpus weight
- Hamm
Hamm
67,162 corpus weight
- Healey
Healey
67,161 corpus weight
- heave
heave
67,160 corpus weight
- hellfire
hellfire
67,159 corpus weight
- Highlander
Highlander
67,158 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “heave” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | heave |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /hiːv/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #32,841 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “heave” sits in English frequency
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 6 spelling variants around heave (IPA /hiːv/), averb. Corpus frequency is #32,841 among 2,646 “H” headwords. Wiktionary lists 13 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for heave, with forms such as "ehave", "haeve", and "heaev". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "hee", "here", "hive", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English heven, hebben, from Old English hebban, from Proto-West Germanic *habbjan, from Proto-Germanic *habjaną (“to take up, lift”), from Proto-Indo-European *kh₂pyéti, from the root *kap-. See also have. Cognates Cognate with West Frisian heff… The correct English form is heave, spelled H-E-A-V-E.
Definition
- 1To lift with difficulty; to raise with some effort; to lift (a heavy thing).
- 2To throw, cast.
- 3To rise and fall.
- 4To utter with effort.
- 5To pull up with a rope or cable.
- 6To lift (generally); to raise, or cause to move upwards (particularly in ships or vehicles) or forwards.
- 7To be thrown up or raised; to rise upward, as a tower or mound.
- 8To displace (a vein, stratum).
- 9To cause to swell or rise, especially in repeated exertions.
- 10To move in a certain direction or into a certain position or situation.
- 11To retch, to make an effort to vomit; to vomit.
- 12To make an effort to raise, throw, or move anything; to strain to do something difficult.
- 13To rob; to steal from; to plunder.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how heave appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
We heaved the chest-of-drawers up to the second-floor landing.
He hove himself out of the bed.
Etymology
From Middle English heven, hebben, from Old English hebban, from Proto-West Germanic *habbjan, from Proto-Germanic *habjaną (“to take up, lift”), from Proto-Indo-European *kh₂pyéti, from the root *kap-. See also have. Cognates Cognate with West Frisian heffe, Dutch heffen ("to raise", "to lift"), German heben ("to raise", "to lift"), Danish hæve ("to raise", "to lift"), Albanian kap (“I grasp, seize”), Old Irish cáin (“law, tribute”), cacht (“prisoner”), Latin capiō (“to take”), Latvian kàmpt (“to seize”), Ancient Greek κάπτω (káptō, “to gulp down”), κώπη (kṓpē, “handle”)). (To lift, to raise): Compare typologically Russian поднима́ть (podnimátʹ), подня́ть (podnjátʹ) (akin to има́ть (imátʹ), име́ть (imétʹ) < Proto-Slavic *jьmati, *jьměti).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- ehave
- haeve
- heaev
- heavve
- hevae
- hheave
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of heave - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "heave"?
What does "heave" mean?
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "heave", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (6 here; floor ≥5).
What to do next
You've looked up "heave". Here's where to go from here.
- "heave" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "hee". View pair
- 6 edit-distance misspelling variants are generated for spell-check research on this headword. See variants
- Usage frequency rank #32,841 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "H" letter cohort. H–Z browse
- PlainSpell rotates a curated Word of the Day from the English corpus, a passive way to discover vocabulary. Word of the Day
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.