weighty

English

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for weighty in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)

Etymology

From Middle English weighti, weghti, wighti, equivalent to weight +‎ -y.

Cognate with Scots weichty, wechty, wichty, Saterland Frisian wichtich, West Frisian wichtich, Dutch wichtig, gewichtig, German wichtig, Danish vægtig, Swedish viktig.

Pronunciation
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Rhymes: -eɪti

Adjective

weighty (comparative weightier, superlative weightiest)

  1. heavy (having a lot of weight)
    a weighty body.
    • 1898, Guy Wetmore Carryl, The Confiding Peasant and the Maladroit Bear
      And so a weighty rock she aimed / With much enthusiasm
  2. important; or serious
    a weighty argument
    • 1853, Solomon Northup, Twelve Years a Slave
      But I have now reached a point in the progress of my narrative, when it becomes necessary to turn away from these light descriptions, to the more grave and weighty matter of the second battle with Master Tibeats, and the flight through the great Pacoudrie Swamp.
      She, too, had given weighty decisions in all these matters:
  3. Rigorous; severe; afflictive.

Derived terms

Translations
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