Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The process of being heaved upward.
  • noun An instance of being so heaved.
  • noun A sudden, violent disruption or upset.
  • noun Geology A raising of a part of the earth's crust.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of upheaving, or the state of being upheaved; a heaving or lifting up; specifically, in geology, a disturbance of a part of the earth's crust, having as one of its results that certain areas occupy a higher position with reference to adjacent areas than they did before the disturbance took place.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The act of upheaving, or the state of being upheaved; esp., an elevation of a portion of the earth's crust.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun the process of being heaved upward, especially the raising of part of the earth's crust
  • noun a sudden violent upset, disruption or convulsion

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a violent disturbance
  • noun disturbance usually in protest
  • noun a state of violent disturbance and disorder (as in politics or social conditions generally)
  • noun (geology) a rise of land to a higher elevation (as in the process of mountain building)

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From upheave +‎ -al.

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Examples

Comments

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  • The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom video game has the hero running through a destroyed kingdom that has been affected by an event called the Upheaval. In the last game, a similar event happened called the Calamity. My guess is that this word is being primed by all the people playing the game and that it will show up with greater frequency this year than normal.

    May 25, 2023