move

• meve (12th to 16th centuries)
• mieve, mooue, moove (obsolete)

From Middle English moven, moeven, meven, borrowed from Old Northern French mover, moveir and Old French mouver, moveir (“to move”) (compare modern French mouvoir from Old French movoir), from Latin movēre, present active infinitive of moveō (“move; change, exchange, go in or out, quit”), from Proto-Indo-European *m(y)ewh₁- (“to move, drive”). Cognate with Lithuanian mauti (“to push on, rush”), Sanskrit मीवति (mī́vati, “pushes, presses, moves”), Middle Dutch mouwe (“sleeve”). Largely displaced native English stir, from Middle English stiren, sturien, from Old English styrian.

• enPR: mo͞ov, IPA^(key): /muːv/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːv

move (third-person singular simple present moves, present participle moving, simple past and past participle moved)

1. (intransitive) To change place or posture; to go, in any manner, from one place or position to another.

   Synonyms: shift, stir; see also Thesaurus:move, Thesaurus:position

   A ship moves rapidly.

   I was sitting on the sofa for a long time, feeling too lazy to move.

   • 1780, William Cowper, “Light Shining out of Darkneſs”, in Twenty-ſix Letters on Religious Subjects […] To which are added Hymns […] ‎^[1], 4th edition, page 252:

     God moves in a myſterious way, / His wonders to perform; / He plants his footſteps in the ſea, / And rides upon the ſtorm.

   • 1839, Denison Olmsted, A Compendium of Astronomy, page 95:

     Secondly, When a body is once in motion it will continue to move forever, unless something stops it. When a ball is struck on the surface of the earth, the friction of the earth and the resistance of the air soon stop its motion.

2. (intransitive) To act; to take action; to begin to act

   Synonyms: get moving, stir, take action

   to move in a matter

   Come on guys, let's move: there's work to do!

4. (intransitive) To change residence, for example from one house, town, or state, to another; to go and live at another place. See also move out and move in.

   Synonyms: flit, move house, remove, shift

   I decided to move to the country for a more peaceful life.

   They moved closer to work to cut down commuting time.

   I'm moving next week but I don't have anything packed yet.

   • 1986, Wen-shun Chi, “Ch’en Tu-hsiu (1879-1942)”, in Ideological Conflicts in Modern China: Democracy and Authoritarianism‎^[2], published 1992, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 202:

     He then moved from Nanking to Wuhan and finally to Chungking, but when his health deteriorated, he went to Chiang-chin, a small village near Chungking, for recuperation. There he died on 27 March 1942.

5. (transitive, ergative) To cause to change place or posture in any manner; to set in motion; to carry, convey, draw, or push from one place to another

   Synonyms: drive, impel, propel, stir

   The waves moved the boat up and down.

   The horse moves a carriage.

6. (transitive, chess, board games) To transfer (a piece) from one space or position on the board to another.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:chess move

   She moved the queen closer to the centre of the board.

   He rolled a 5 and moved his counter to Boardwalk, the most expensive property on the Monopoly board.

7. (transitive) To excite to action by the presentation of motives; to rouse by representation, persuasion, or appeal; to influence.

   Synonyms: entice, induce, inveigle, persuade, sway

   This song moves me to dance.

   • 1603, Richard Knolles, The Generall Historie of the Turkes, […], London: […] Adam Islip, →OCLC:

     Seducer of the People, not moved with the Piety of his Life

   • 1697, Virgil, “The Seventh Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:

     No female arts his mind could move.

9. (transitive) To arouse the feelings or passions of; especially, to excite to tenderness or compassion, to excite (for example, an emotion).

   Synonyms: affect, excite, touch, trouble

   That book really moved me.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 9:36:

     When he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them.

10. (transitive, intransitive) To propose; to recommend; specifically, to propose formally for consideration and determination, in a deliberative assembly; to submit

    I move to repeal the rule regarding obligatory school uniform.

    • 1905, Livy, translated by Canon Roberts, From the Founding of the City, Book 38:

      Two days were thus wasted in the quarrel between the consuls. It was clear that while Faminius was present no decision could be arrived at. Owing to Flaminius' absence through illness, Aemilius seized the opportunity to move a resolution which the senate adopted. Its purport was that the Ambracians should have all their property restored to them; they should be free to live under their own laws; they should impose such harbour dues and other imposts by land and sea as they desired, provided that the Romans and their Italian allies were exempt.

    • 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:

      Let me but move one question to your daughter.

    • 1630, John Hayward, The Life and Raigne of King Edward the Sixth:

      And therefore they are to be blamed alike, both who moue and who decline warre […]

11. (transitive, obsolete) To mention; to raise (a question); to suggest (a course of action); to lodge (a complaint).

    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:mention

12. (transitive, obsolete) To incite, urge (someone to do something); to solicit (someone for or of an issue); to make a proposal to.

    Synonyms: motivate, provoke; see also Thesaurus:incite

    • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur, Book VII:

      "Sir," seyde Sir Boys, "ye nede nat to meve me of such maters, for well ye wote I woll do what I may to please you."

    • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act II, scene vii:

      The thirſt of raigne and ſweetnes of a crowne, […]
      Moou’d me to menage armes againſt thy ſtate.

13. (transitive, obsolete) To apply to, as for aid.
    • c. 1594 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Comedie of Errors”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]:

      To me she speaks; she moves me for her them

14. (law, transitive, intransitive) To request an action from the court.

    An attorney moved the court to issue a restraining order.

    The district attorney moved for a non-suit.

15. (intransitive, obsolete) To bow or salute upon meeting.
16. (transitive, business) To sell or market (especially physical inventory or illicit drugs).

    This business will fail if it can't move the inventory quickly.

17. (transitive, programming) To transfer the value of one object in memory to another efficiently (i.e., without copying it in entirety).
    • 2013, Bjarne Stroustrup, The C++ Programming Language, 4th edition, Addison-Wesley, →ISBN, 3.3.2, page 75:

      We didn’t really want a copy; we just wanted to get the result out of a function: we wanted to move a Vector rather than to copy it.

    • 2018, Jim Blandy, Jason Orendorff, chapter 4, in Programming Rust: Fast, Safe Systems Development, O’Reilly, →ISBN, page 77:

      In Rust, for most types, operations like assigning a value to a variable, passing it to a function, or returning it from a function don’t copy the value: they move it.

    • 2023 September, Attila Gyén, Dániel Kolozsvári, Norbert Pataki, “Code Comprehension for the Move Semantics in C++”, in Proceedings of the Tenth Workshop on Software Quality Analysis, Monitoring, Improvement, and Applications‎^[3], Bratislava, Slovakia: Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, →ISSN, page 3:

      In this paper, we focus on two specific move related issues: using an entity which has already been moved hence making it invalid, and calling move operations when doing so will not have any effect on how the program executes

move (plural moves)

1. The act of moving; a movement.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:movement

   A slight move of the tiller, and the boat will go off course.

   The drummer Cynthia praised her best friends' dance moves to the music.

   • 1913, Arthur Conan Doyle, “(please specify the page)”, in The Poison Belt […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:

     Lord John had followed me. "By George, young fellah!" said he, pulling off his coat. "You've hit on a dooced good notion. Give me a grip and we'll soon have a move on it." But, even then, so heavy was the bell that it was not until Challenger and Summerlee had added their weight to ours that we heard the roaring and clanging above our heads which told us that the great clapper was ringing out its music.

2. An act for the attainment of an object; a step in the execution of a plan or purpose.

   He made another move towards becoming a naturalized citizen.

3. A formalized or practiced action used in athletics, dance, physical exercise, self-defense, hand-to-hand combat, etc.

   She always gets spontaneous applause for that one move.

   He can win a match with that one move.

4. The event of changing one's residence.

   Synonyms: removal, relocation

   The move into my fiancé's house took two long days.

   They were pleased about their move to the country.

   • 1990, Wayne Jancik, The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders, →ISBN, page 216:

     From early on, he sang in the church choir, and before his move to Philadelphia in 1965, Cliff was already quite well-known in his hometown as a gospel singer.

5. A change in strategy.

   I am worried about our boss's move.

   It was a smart move to bring on a tall striker to play against the smaller defenders.

6. A transfer, a change from one employer to another.
   • 2013 September 1, Phil McNulty, BBC Sport:

     Robin van Persie squandered United's best chance late on but otherwise it was a relatively comfortable afternoon for Liverpool's new goalkeeper Simon Mignolet, who has yet to concede a Premier League goal since his £9m summer move from Sunderland.

7. (board games) The act of moving a token on a gameboard from one position to another according to the rules of the game.

   Synonym: play

   The best move of the game was when he sacrificed his rook in order to gain better possession.

   It's your move! Roll the dice!

   If you roll a six, you can make two moves.

8. (board games, usually in the plural) A round, in which each player has a turn.

   You can win in three moves if you do that.

• “move”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Clipping of motivaatiovemppa.

• IPA^(key): /ˈmoʋe/, [ˈmo̞ʋe̞]
• Rhymes: -oʋe
• Hyphenation^(key): mo‧ve

move

1. (military slang) A conscript who acquires or has acquired exemptions from physical education for falsified reasons of health, i.e. by feigning sick.

• verbs: movettaa

move

1. inflection of mover:
   1. third-person singular present indicative
   2. second-person singular imperative

From French mauvais (“bad”).

• IPA^(key): /move/

move

1. bad

move

1. present of mover
2. imperative of mover

movē

1. second-person singular present active imperative of moveō

• Rhymes: (Brazil) -ɔvi
• Hyphenation: mo‧ve

move

1. inflection of mover:
   1. third-person singular present indicative
   2. second-person singular imperative