Word.ws English Dictionary

heave-hos

heave-hos 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-hos

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

Words near heave-hos in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: heave-hos (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.

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