Word.ws English Dictionary

heave-to

heave-to verb: to stop (a seagoing vessel).

Verb

heave-to

  1. To stop (a seagoing vessel).
  2. To back-wind the jib and luff the main to hold a position especially in heavy seas.

Questions about heave-to

What does heave-to mean?
Heave-to means to stop (a seagoing vessel).
What part of speech is heave-to?
Heave-to is a verb.

Words near heave-to in the dictionary

  1. heave-hos
  2. heave-o
  3. heave-os
  4. heave-shoulder
  5. heave-shoulders
  6. heave-to
  7. heaved
  8. heaved the log
  9. heaved to
  10. heavedst
  11. heaveless

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: heave-to (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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