heat

English Online Dictionary. What means heat‎? What does heat mean?

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: hēt, IPA^(key): /hiːt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /hit/, [çit]
• Rhymes: -iːt

Etymology 1

From Middle English hete, from Old English hǣtu, from Proto-West Germanic *haitī, from Proto-Germanic *haitį̄ (“heat”), from Proto-Indo-European *keHy- (“heat; hot”). Cognate with Scots hete (“heat”), North Frisian hiet (“heat”), Old High German heizī (“heat”). Related also to Dutch hitte (“heat”), German Hitze (“heat”), Swedish hetta (“heat”), Icelandic hiti (“heat”).

Noun

heat (countable and uncountable, plural heats)

1. (uncountable) Thermal energy.

2. (uncountable) The condition or quality of being hot.

3. (uncountable) An attribute of a spice that causes a burning sensation in the mouth.

4. (uncountable) A period of intensity, particularly of emotion.

   Synonyms: passion, vehemence

5. (uncountable) An undesirable amount of attention.

6. (countable, baseball) A fastball.

7. (uncountable) A condition where a mammal is aroused sexually or where it is especially fertile and therefore eager to mate; oestrus.
   1. (countable, fandom slang) In omegaverse fiction, a cyclical period in which omegas experience an intense, sometimes irresistible biological urge to mate.
      • 2017, Marianne Gunderson, "What is an omega? Rewriting sex and gender in omegaverse fanfiction", thesis submitted to the University of Oslo, page 40:

        When Yuri goes into his first heat, it is not only an uncomfortable and traumatic physical experience, it is also an identity crisis: this is the moment realizes that he is an omega, and not a beta as he had previously assumed.
8. (countable) A preliminary race, used to determine the participants in a final race.

9. (countable, by extension) A stage in a competition, not necessarily a sporting one; a round.
10. (countable) One cycle of bringing metal to maximum temperature and working it until it is too cool to work further.
11. (countable) A hot spell.

12. (uncountable) Heating system; a system that raises the temperature of a room or building.

13. (uncountable) The output of a heating system.

14. (countable) A violent action unintermitted; a single effort.
15. (uncountable, slang) The police.
16. (uncountable, slang) One or more firearms.
17. (uncountable, slang) Stylish and valuable sneakers.
18. (professional wrestling slang) A negative reaction from the audience, especially as a heel (or bad character), or in general.

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English heten, from Old English hǣtan (“to heat; become hot”), from Proto-Germanic *haitijaną (“to heat, make hot”).

Verb

heat (third-person singular simple present heats, present participle heating, simple past and past participle heated or (dialectal) het)

1. (transitive) To cause an increase in temperature of (an object or space); to cause to become hot (often with "up").

2. (intransitive) To become hotter.

3. (transitive, figurative) To excite or make hot by action or emotion; to make feverish.
4. (transitive, figurative) To excite ardour in; to rouse to action; to excite to excess; to inflame, as the passions.
5. (transitive, slang) To arouse, to excite (sexually).

Synonyms

• stoke
• warm up
• heat up; hot up, hot

Derived terms

Translations

Further reading

• “heat”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “heat”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “heat”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “heat”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.

Anagrams

• Thea, eath, haet, hate, heta

Scottish Gaelic

Noun

heat m

1. (chiefly Lewis, south Skye) anything, (in the negative) nothing

   Synonyms: càil, dad, func, sgath, sìon, stuth

Swedish

Etymology

From English heat.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈhiːt/
• Homophone: hit

Noun

heat n

1. (sports) A heat, a preliminary race, used to determine the participants in a final race

Declension

Derived terms

• försöksheat
• kvalheat
• mellanheat
• skiljeheat
• uppsamlingsheat

Anagrams

• Thea, heta