heft
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /hɛft/
ipa: /heft/
rhymes: -ɛft
Forms: form: hefts
form: hefting
form: hefted
form: hefted
Etymology: The noun is derived from Late Middle English heft (“heaviness; something heavy, a weight”), from heven (“to lift, raise; to make an effort to lift or raise, heave”) + -th (suffix denoting a condition, quality, state of being, etc., forming nouns), by analogy with the development of weft from weven (modern English weave), etc. (also compare words like cleft from cleave, and theft from thieve, where the development occurred in Old English or earlier languages). The English word is analysable as heave + -t (suffix forming nouns from verbs).
The verb is probably derived from the noun.
Senses: examples: text: He hefted the sack of concrete into the truck.
text: […] Bevis was to "heft" his gun to the shoulder, and only to press it there sufficiently to feel that the butt touched him.
ref: 1882, Richard Jefferies, “Shooting with Double-barrels”, in Bevis: The Story of a Boy […], volume III, London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, […], →OCLC, page 254:
text: I'd say, put irons on his shackles (wrists), a omber (horse-collar) o' hemp around his neck, sit him on a dung-cart, and drive him aneath th' tawest whoke-tree (oak-tree) in the parish, throw th' t'other end of th' hemp o'er a good stout limb, and let every honest man in Voe lend a hand to heft th' rogue into th' air.
ref: 1888, Paul Cushing, “A Witness Tells His Tale”, in The Blacksmith of Voe […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], published 1892, →OCLC, page 176:
text: And here they must make the long portage, and the boys sweat in the sun; / And they heft and pack, and they haul and track, and each must do his trick; […]
ref: 1912, Robert W[illiam] Service, “Athabaska Dick”, in Rhymes of a Rolling Stone, Toronto, Ont.: William Briggs, →OCLC, stanza 1, page 46:
text: [H]e found that he was hefting the bench leg, curiously, as though trying its balance, as if he had never touched it before.
ref: 1932, William Faulkner, chapter 14, in Light in August, [New York, N.Y.]: Harrison Smith & Robert Haas, →OCLC; republished London: Chatto & Windus, 1933, →OCLC, page 308:
synonyms: hoist
glosses: To lift or lift up (something, especially a heavy object).
examples: text: [H]e took up a root or two [potatoes] here and there, and "hefted it," (that is to say, poised it carefully to judge the weight, as one does a letter for the post) and then stroked the sleek skin lovingly, and put it down gingerly for fear of any bruise.
ref: 1894, R[ichard] D[oddridge] Blackmore, “The Potato-field”, in Perlycross: A Tale of the Western Hills, London: Sampson Low, Marston, & Company […], →OCLC, page 58:
glosses: To test the weight of (something) by lifting.
examples: text: Sim's ben to college, and he's putty smart and chipper. Come to heft him, tho', he don't weigh much 'longside o' Parson Cushing.
ref: 1878, Harriet Beecher Stowe, “The Illumination”, in Poganuc People: Their Loves and Lives, New York, N.Y.: Fords, Howard, & Hulbert, →OCLC, pages 34–35:
glosses: To test the weight of (something) by lifting.
To evaluate or test (someone or something).
examples: text: "[I]t's yellow! is it gold?" / "My!" exclaimed his mother, weighing it in her hand, "I do believe it is. Brass never would heft so much, and would be green. Bless me, Wat, this is a find! Where ever did you come by it? In the gutters, do you say?"
ref: 1893, Charlotte M[ary] Yonge, “The Hoard”, in The Treasures in the Marshes, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Thomas Whittaker, […], →OCLC, page 12:
glosses: To have (substantial) weight; to weigh.
Derived terms: heftable
hefter
unhefted