What does "heat" mean?

Additional senses

1. 2.High temperature, as distinguished from low temperature, or cold; as, the heat of summer and the cold of winter; heat of the skin or body in fever, etc. Else how had the world . . . Avoided pinching cold and scorching heat! Milton.
2. 3.Indication of high temperature; appearance, condition, or color of a body, as indicating its temperature; redness; high color; flush; degree of temperature to which something is heated, as indicated by appearance, condition, or otherwise. It has raised . . . heats in their faces. Addison. The heats smiths take of their iron are a blood-red heat, a white- flame heat, and a sparking or welding heat. Moxon.
3. 4.A single complete operation of heating, as at a forge or in a furnace; as, to make a horseshoe in a certain number of heats.
4. 5.A violent action unintermitted; a single effort; a single course in a race that consists of two or more courses; as, he won two heats out of three. Many causes . . . for refreshment betwixt the heats. Dryden. [He] struck off at one heat the matchless tale of "Tam o'Shanter." J. C. Shairp.
5. 6.Utmost violence; rage; vehemence; as, the heat of battle or party. "The heat of their division." Shak.
6. 7.Agitation of mind; inflammation or excitement; exasperation. "The head and hurry of his rage." South.
7. 8.Animation, as in discourse; ardor; fervency. With all the strength and heat of eloquence. Addison.
8. 9.Sexual excitement in animals.
9. 10.Fermentation. Animal heat, Blood heat, Capacity for heat, etc. See under Animal, Blood, etc. -- Atomic heat (Chem.), the product obtained by multiplying the atomic weight of any element by its specific heat. The atomic heat of all solid elements is nearly a constant, the mean value being 6.4. -- Dynamical theory of heat, that theory of heat which assumes it to be, not a peculiar kind of matter, but a peculiar motion of the ultimate particles of matter. Heat engine, any apparatus by which a heated substance, as a heated fluid, is made to perform work by giving motion to mechanism, as a hot-air engine, or a steam engine. -- Heat producers. (Physiol.) See under Food. -- Heat rays, a term formerly applied to the rays near the red end of the spectrum, whether within or beyond the visible spectrum. -- Heat weight (Mech.), the product of any quantity of heat by the mechanical equivalent of heat divided by the absolute temperature; -- called also thermodynamic function, and entropy. -- Mechanical equivalent of heat. See under Equivalent. -- Specific heat of a substance (at any temperature), the number of units of heat required to raise the temperature of a unit mass of the substance at that temperature one degree. -- Unit of heat, the quantity of heat required to raise, by one degree, the temperature of a unit mass of water, initially at a certain standard temperature. The temperature usually employed is that of 0º Centigrade, or 32º Fahrenheit.
10. 11.To make hot; to communicate heat to, or cause to grow warm; as, to heat an oven or furnace, an iron, or the like. Heat me these irons hot. Shak.
11. 12.To excite or make hot by action or emotion; to make feverish. Pray, walk softly; do not heat your blood. Shak.
12. 13.To excite ardor in; to rouse to action; to excite to excess; to inflame, as the passions. A noble emulation heats your breast. Dryden.
13. 14.To grow warm or not by the action of fire or friction, etc., or the communication of heat; as, the iron or the water heats slow.
14. 15.To grow warm or hot by fermentation, or the development of heat by chemical action; as, green hay heats in a mow, and manure in the dunghill.
15. 16.Heated; as, the iron though heat red-hot. [Obs. or Archaic.] Shak.