Etymology 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 (“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. See also Old English hrēran.
To change place or posture; to go, in any manner, from one place or position to another.
A ship moves rapidly.
I was sitting on the sofa for a long time, feeling too lazy to move.
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God moves in a myſterious way, / His wonders to perform; / He plants his footſteps in the ſea, / And rides upon the ſtorm.1780, William Cowper, “Light Shining out of Darkneſs”, in Twenty-ſix Letters on Religious Subjects […] To which are added Hymns […] , 4th edition, page 252:
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.1839, Denison Olmsted, A Compendium of Astronomy, page 95:
2
To act; to take action; to begin to act
to move in a matter
Come on guys, let's move: there's work to do!
3
To change residence, for example from one house, town, or state, to another; to go and live at another place; similarly to change the location of another establishment such as a business. See also move out and move in.
I decided to move to the country for a more peaceful life.
They moved closer to work to cut down commuting time.
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I'm moving next week but I don't have anything packed yet.
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 1942.1986, Wen-shun Chi, “Ch’en Tu-hsiu (1879-1942)”, in Ideological Conflicts in Modern China: Democracy and Authoritarianism, published 1992, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 202:
4
To transport (an item) as part of changing residences.
Before my lease ended, I gave away my old sofa because I didn't want to move it.
5
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
The waves moved the boat up and down.
The horse moves a carriage.
6
Board games, Chess, Games To transfer (a piece) from one space or position on the board to another.
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
To excite to action by the presentation of motives; to rouse by representation, persuasion, or appeal; to influence.
This song moves me to dance.
Seducer of the People, not moved with the Piety of his Life1603, Richard Knolles, The Generall Historie of the Turkes, […], London: […] Adam Islip, →OCLC:
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No female arts his mind could move.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:
8
To arouse the feelings or passions of; especially, to excite to tenderness or compassion, to excite (for example, an emotion).
That book really moved me.
When he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 9:36:
9
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.
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.1905, Livy, translated by Canon Roberts, From the Founding of the City, Book 38:
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Let me but move one question to your daughter.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]:
And therefore they are to be blamed alike, both who moue and who decline warre[…]1630, John Hayward, The Life and Raigne of King Edward the Sixth:
10
Obsolete To mention; to raise (a question); to suggest (a course of action); to lodge (a complaint).
11
Obsolete To incite, urge (someone to do something); to solicit (someone for or of an issue); to make a proposal to.
"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."1485, Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur, Book VII:
The thirſt of raigne and ſweetnes of a crowne, […] Moou’d me to menage armes againſt thy ſtate.c. 1587–1588 (date written), [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:
To me she speaks; she moves me for her themc. 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]:
Business To sell or market (especially physical inventory or illicit drugs).
This business will fail if it can't move the inventory quickly.
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Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Programming, Sciences To transfer the value of one object in memory to another efficiently (i.e., without copying it in entirety).
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.2013, Bjarne Stroustrup, The C++ Programming Language, 4th edition, Addison-Wesley, →ISBN, 3.3.2, page 75:
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.2018, Jim Blandy, Jason Orendorff, chapter 4, in Programming Rust: Fast, Safe Systems Development, O’Reilly, →ISBN, page 77:
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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 executes2023 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, Bratislava, Slovakia: Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, →ISSN, page 3:
Etymology 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 (“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. See also Old English hrēran.
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.
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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.1913, Arthur Conan Doyle, “(please specify the page)”, in The Poison Belt […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:
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.
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The idea of this move is to get two weights over your head any way you can.2026, Greg Presto, “Timeless Gains”, in Men's Health, volume 41, number 2, page 14:
4
The event of changing one's residence.
The move into my fiancé's house took two long days.
They were pleased about their move to the country.
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While planning a recent move, I checked the pages of Majority Report, which lists women-owned and operated businesses and found a listing for "Truck You." […] Two women from Queens, and formerly of New Jersey GAA, Ulla and Mickey, came with their van and a successful move was accomplished without reliance on macho male bruisers.1977 February 12, Bruce Michael Gelbert, “Some New York Alternatives”, in Gay Community News, volume 4, number 33, page 5:
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.1990, Wayne Jancik, The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders, →ISBN, page 216:
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.
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.2013 September 1, Phil McNulty, BBC Sport:
7
The act of moving a token on a gameboard from one position to another according to the rules of the game.
The best move of the game was when he sacrificed his rook in order to gain better possession.