halve

From Middle English halven, helven, from Old English hilfan, helfan, *hielfan (“to halve, divide in two”), from Proto-West Germanic *halbijan, from Proto-Germanic *halbijaną (“to halve”), from Proto-Germanic *halbaz (“half”).

Cognate with Middle Dutch halven (“to halve”), Middle High German halben, helben (“to halve”). Compare also West Frisian helte (“to halve”), Dutch halveren (“to halve”), German Low German halberen (“to halve”), German halbieren (“to halve”), Danish halvere (“to halve”), Swedish halvera (“to halve”).

• (England, Wales, General Australian, New Zealand) enPR: häv, IPA^(key): /hɑːv/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

  • Rhymes: -ɑːv
• (US) enPR: hăv, IPA^(key): /hæv/
  • Homophone: have (stressed)
  • Rhymes: -æv
• (Ireland, Scotland) IPA^(key): /hav/
  • Homophone: have (stressed)
  • Rhymes: -æf, -ɑːv

halve (third-person singular simple present halves, present participle halving, simple past and past participle halved)

1. (transitive) To reduce to half the original amount.
   • 1960 December, “Talking of Trains: B.R. safety in 1959”, in Trains Illustrated, page 708:

     These show that since 1946 the fatality rate in train and movement accidents combined has been halved, [...].

   • 2011 November 23, Benjamin Wallace, “The Rise and Fall of Bitcoin”, in Wired‎^[1], San Francisco, Calif.: Condé Nast Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2 January 2025:

     The difficulty of each puzzle would increase as the number of miners increased, which would keep production to one block of transactions roughly every 10 minutes. In addition, the size of each block bounty would halve every 210,000 blocks—first from 50 bitcoins to 25, then from 25 to 12.5, and so on. Around the year 2140, the currency would reach its preordained limit of 21 million bitcoins.

3. (transitive) To divide into two halves.
4. (transitive) To make up half of.
   • 1855, Matthew Arnold, Faded Leaves:

     So far apart their lives are thrown / From the twin soul that halves their own.

5. (architecture, transitive) To join two pieces of timber etc. by cutting away each for half its thickness at the joining place, and fitting together.
6. (golf, transitive) In match play, to achieve a tie or draw on.
   • 1902, Robert Marshall Grade, The Haunted Major:

     I, of course, had no difficulty in doing likewise, and we halved the hole; but the awkward fact remained that I must now gain every hole to win the match, for my opponent's score was "nine up," and there only remained ten holes to play.

   • 2005, Bill Elliott, The Golf Bag Buddy: The Essential On-Course Reference, page 67:

     All that counts is whether you won, lost, or halved the match.

• (to divide into two halves): dichotomize, dimidiate; see also Thesaurus:bisect

• Havel, Vahle

• IPA^(key): [ˈhalvə], [ˈhall̩]

halve

1. plural and definite singular attributive of halv

• IPA^(key): /ˈɦɑl.və/

• Audio:

  (file)

halve

1. inflection of half:
   1. masculine/feminine singular attributive
   2. definite neuter singular attributive
   3. plural attributive

halve

1. alternative form of half

halve

1. alternative form of helve

halve

1. definite singular of halv
2. plural of halv

From Old Norse halfa.

halve f or m (definite singular halva or halven, indefinite plural halver, definite plural halvene)

1. (a) half

• halvdel
• halvpart

• “halve” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

halve

1. definite singular of halv
2. plural of halv

From Old Norse halfa.

halve f (definite singular halva, indefinite plural halver, definite plural halvene)

1. a half

• halvdel
• halvpart

• “halve” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.