Word.ws English Dictionary

heave-hoes

heave-hoes is the plural of heave-ho.

Meaning of heave-ho

Noun

heave-ho (plural heave-hoes or heave-hos)

  1. A cry of heave-ho.
    • Over the water came the clank and rattle of chains and the "Heave-ho!" of the sailors getting ready for departure.1878 September 7, Dorothy Boulger [as Theo Gift], “An Island Princess”, in All The Year Round, volume 21, number 510, page 240
  2. (informal) An ejection; a forced removal; a dismissal (as from a job or relationship).
    • When I was a kid—well, more of a kid than I am now—I used to believe he really was a bishop—unfrocked, of course, or ungaitered, or whatever they call it when they give a bishop the heave-ho.1961, Henry Beam Piper, Four-Day Planet, New York: Grosset & Dunlap, page 13

See all 4 meanings of heave-ho

Questions about heave-hoes

What is heave-hoes the plural of?
Heave-hoes is the plural of heave-ho.

Words near heave-hoes in the dictionary

  1. heave offerings
  2. heave the log
  3. heave to
  4. heave-ho
  5. heave-hoed
  6. heave-hoes
  7. heave-hoing
  8. heave-hos
  9. heave-o
  10. heave-os
  11. heave-shoulder

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: heave-hoes (page history and authors); heave-ho (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.

Last updated:

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