Word.ws English Dictionary

dry heave

dry heave is the alternative form of dry-heave.

Meaning of dry-heave

Verb

dry-heave (third-person singular simple present dry-heaves, present participle dry-heaving, simple past and past participle dry-heaved)

  1. To attempt to vomit with the ejection of only gas.
    • I followed as he hobbled toward the bathroom, and my father barely made it to the toilet before he started dry-heaving, knees spread on the tile.2020, Bryan Washington, Memorial, Atlantic Books (2021), page 162

See all 2 meanings of dry-heave

Forms of dry heave

Verb
third-person singular presentdry heaves
present participledry heaving
past participledry heaved
pastdry heaved
Noun
pluraldry heaves

Questions about dry heave

What is dry heave the alternative form of?
Dry heave is the alternative form of dry-heave.

Words near dry heave in the dictionary

  1. dry guillotine
  2. dry haze
  3. dry hazes
  4. dry heater
  5. dry heaters
  6. dry heave
  7. dry heaved
  8. dry heaves
  9. dry heaving
  10. dry hire
  11. dry hole

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dry heave (page history and authors); dry-heave (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “dry heave.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dry_heave. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.