throw weight

or throw·weight

[ throh-weyt ]

noun
  1. the lifting power, or payload maximum, of a ballistic missile exclusive of the weight of the rocket itself, and including the weight of the warhead or warheads and of guidance and penetration systems; ballistic delivery power: larger Russian missiles with a throw weight of up to 20 megatons.

Origin of throw weight

1
First recorded in 1965–70

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use throw weight in a sentence

  • A slight lifting of the left heel will lessen the tendency to throw weight on that foot.

    How To Ski and How Not To | Vivian Caulfeild
  • The petitioners proposed a measure that evidently tended to throw weight into a scale which preponderated too much already.

British Dictionary definitions for throw weight

throw weight

noun
  1. the maximum weight of supplementary mechanisms that can be lifted by the boost stages of a particular missile

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Cultural definitions for throw-weight

throw-weight

The size of the nuclear warhead or set of warheads that a missile, such as a ballistic missile, can carry. A nation might make up for the inaccuracy of its missiles by increasing their throw-weight.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.