Word.ws English Dictionary

weight

/weɪt/

weight noun: the downwards force an object experiences due to gravity. Also the ellipsis of free weight.

weight: the downwards force an object experiences due to gravity
Image: Coyau, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

weight (countable and uncountable, plural weights)

  1. The downwards force an object experiences due to gravity.
  2. An object used to make something heavier.
  3. A standardized block of metal used in a balance to measure the mass of another object.
  4. (figuratively) Importance or influence.
    • I liked the man for his own sake, and even had he promised to turn out a celebrity it would have had no weight with me. I look upon notoriety with the same indifference as on the buttons on a man's shirt-front, or the crest on his note-paper.1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC
    • Another knight came to settle on the island, a man of much weight and position, on whom the Adelantados of all the island relied, and who was made a magistrate.1907 Alonso de Espinosa, Hakluyt Society & Sir Clements Robert Markham, The Guanches of Tenerife: the holy image of Our Lady of Candelaria, and the Spanish conquest and settlement, Printed for the...
  5. An object, such as a weight plate or barbell, used for strength training.
    • He's working out with weights. Weight-bearing exercise is now understood to be just as important as cardio.
  6. Viscosity rating.
  7. Mass (atomic weight, molecular weight, etc.) (in restricted circumstances).
  8. (proscribed) Synonym of mass (in general circumstances).
    Synonyms:
    mass
  9. (measurement) Mass (net weight, troy weight, carat weight, etc.).
    • I'm the same weight as I was ten years ago.
  10. A variable which multiplies a value for ease of statistical manipulation.
  11. (especially, machine learning) Emphasis applied to a given criterion.
    • Even though it's got its two features of color and hardness, it doesn't know how much importance or, as computer scientists say, weight to place on each of them.2017, Up and Atom, Machine Learning Explained in 5 Minutes
    • “Logits” are the vectors of weights.2024, Laura Masbruch, Pasta Land
  12. The smallest cardinality of a base.
Show 11 more meaningsShow fewer meanings
  1. The boldness of a font; the relative thickness of its strokes.
    • font weight
  2. The relative thickness of a drawn rule or painted brushstroke, line weight.
  3. The illusion of mass.
  4. The thickness and opacity of paint.
  5. The thickness of yarn.
    • If you'd like to use a different weight of yarn, just check the label for the recommended crochet hook size and use that.2011 August 23, Carmen Heffernan, “How to make colourful crocheted flowers”, in The Guardian
    • The weight of the finished thread also varies with the spinner, although the general aim is laceweight singles for weaving.2026, Elise Young, “Yagaa: Reviving Sericulture in Southern Mexico”, in Spin Off, volume L, number 1, page 16
  6. (figuratively) Pressure; burden.
    • the weight of care or business
    • The waight of this ſad time we muſt obey[…]c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
  7. The resistance against which a machine acts, as opposed to the power which moves it.
  8. (slang, uncountable) Shipments of (often illegal) drugs.
    • He was pushing weight.
    • The three of us were hanging out rapping in Hamilton projects with some niggahs Pimp had got tight with on Rikers Island. Them fools had done a push-in and took over some old lady's apartment, and they were in there cutting crack and mixing weight.2006, Noire [pseudonym], Thug-A-Licious: An Urban Erotic Tale, New York, N.Y.: One World, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 103
  9. (countable, slang) One pound of drugs, especially cannabis.
    • [I was] doing a weight [1 lb. at that time] a week, sometimes more, sometimes less.2002, Nicholas Dorn, Karim Murji, Nigel South, Traffickers: Drug Markets and Law Enforcement, page 5
    • The ones the CIB should be looking out for, to her mind, were the officers who raided a flat, found a couple of weights of cannabis and stashed half of it before they made the collar. The cannabis would make its way back on to the street […]2009, Martina Cole, The Ladykiller
  10. (dated, crime slang) Money.
    • No matter how much money he makes, he is still a soldier, but he has the weight.1974, Martin R. Haskell, Lewis Yablonsky, Crime and Delinquency, page 96
  11. Weight class.
    • You’re no match for ’em. You ain’t up to their weight. It’s like little Black Strap standing up to Tom Spring,—the Black’s a pretty fighter but, Law bless you, his arm ain’t long enough to touch Tom,—and I tell you, you’re going it with fellers beyond your weight.1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC
    1. Used as part of compound words for weight class titles, e.g. heavyweight, flyweight.

Verb

weight (third-person singular simple present weights, present participle weighting, simple past and past participle weighted)

  1. (transitive) To add weight to something; to make something heavier.
    1. (transitive) To load (fabrics) with barite, etc. to increase the weight.
  2. (transitive) To load, burden or oppress someone.
  3. (transitive) To assign weights to individual statistics.
  4. (transitive) To bias something; to slant.
    • The criteria governing the choice of candidate were heavily weighted in his favor.
    • The U.K. economy is heavily weighted towards the service sector and the coronavirus pandemic could lead to a 10% fall in gross domestic product in the second quarter, according to economists at Jefferies.2020 March 19, Marcus Ashworth, “Cheap Sterling Has Reasons to Be Cheaper”, in The Washington Post
  5. (transitive) To handicap a horse with a specified weight.
  6. (transitive) To give a certain amount of force to a throw, kick, hit, etc.
    • With good peripheral vision he spots his teammate, Ray Evans, lurking in the scoring zone and sweeps a perfectly weighted pass to him.2008, Tom Valenta, Remember Me, Mrs V?: Caring for My Wife: Her Alzheimer's and Others' Stories, ReadHowYouWant

Proper noun capitalized: Weight

Weight (plural Weights)

  1. A surname.

Also used as

weight is also the ellipsis of free weight.

weight meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

weight in Hindi

weight for training muscles
भार bhār
force due to gravity
भार bhār, वज़न vazan
object to make something heavier
भार bhār
standardized measuring weight
भार bhār

weight in Tamil

force due to gravity
எடை eṭai

weight in Marathi

force due to gravity
वजन vaj̈an

weight in Urdu

force due to gravity
وَزْن vazn
More languagesFewer languages
weight in Bengali
ওজন ōjon
weight in Telugu
భారము bhāramu, బరువు baruvu
weight in Malayalam
ഭാരം bhāraṁ
weight in Kannada
ತೂಕ tūka
weight in Odia
ଭାର bhāra
weight in Sanskrit
गुरुत्व gurutva
weight in Sinhala
බර bara
weight in Assamese
ওজন üzon
weight in Nepali
तौल taul
weight in Tagalog
bigat
weight in Arabic
ثِقْل ṯiql, وَزْن wazn
weight in Malay
pemberat, berat
weight in Indonesian
berat, bobot, pemberat
weight in Thai
น้ำหนัก nám-nàk
weight in Vietnamese
trọng lượng, cân nặng
weight in Myanmar
အလေး a.le:

Examples of weight in a sentence

  • "You surely are a man of some weight around here," I said.1945, Mikia Pezas, The price of liberty, I. Washburn, Inc., page 11:
  • For the public all this weight he bears.1671, John Milton, “The Second Book”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn]...

All 40 example sentences with weight

Synonyms of weight

Forms of weight

Noun
pluralweights
alternative formwt.
alternative form (obsolete)waight
Verb
third-person singular presentweights
present participleweighting
past participleweighted
pastweighted
Proper noun
pluralWeights

Past tense of weight: weighted

Plural of weight: weights

Origin of weight

From Middle English weight, weiȝte, weght, wight, from Old English wiht, ġewiht (“weight”), from Proto-Germanic *wihtiz ("weight"; compare *weganą (“to move”)), from Proto-Indo-European *weǵʰ- (“to move; pull; draw; drive”). Equivalent to weigh + -t (abstract nominal suffix). Cognate with Scots wecht, weicht (“weight”), Saterland Frisian Wächte (“scale”), Gewicht (“weight”), West Frisian gewicht (“weight”), Dutch gewicht (“weight”), German Low German Wicht, Gewicht (“weight”), German Wucht (“massiveness, force”), Gewicht (“weight”).

Words formed from weight

Phrases with weight

97 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with weight

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about weight

What does weight mean?
Weight means the downwards force an object experiences due to gravity.
What is weight in Hindi?
Weight in Hindi is भार (bhār), वज़न (vazan), भरना (bharnā). See Weight meaning in Hindi.
How do you use weight in a sentence?
"You surely are a man of some weight around here," I said.
What part of speech is weight?
Weight can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce weight?
Weight is pronounced /weɪt/.
What is the plural of weight?
The plural of weight is weights.

Words near weight in the dictionary

  1. weighs off
  2. weighs on
  3. weighs one's words
  4. weighs out
  5. weighs up
  6. weight
  7. weight bar
  8. weight bars
  9. weight bear
  10. weight bearing
  11. weight bears

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: weight (page history and authors); Weight (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-weight.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-weight.wav.

Cite this entry: “weight.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/weight. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.