heavily
Americanadverb
-
with a great weight or burden.
a heavily loaded wagon.
-
in a manner suggestive of carrying a great weight; ponderously; lumberingly.
He walked heavily across the room.
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in an oppressive manner.
Cares weigh heavily upon him.
-
to suffer heavily.
-
densely; thickly.
heavily wooded.
-
in large amounts or in great quantities; very much.
It rained heavily on Tuesday.
-
without animation or vigor; in a dull manner; sluggishly.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of heavily
First recorded before 900; Middle English hevyly, Old English hefiglīce; equivalent to heavy + -ly
Explanation
Anything that happens heavily is weighty, extensive, or labored. A car falling off its jack will crash heavily to the ground, and if you are a new runner, you'll be breathing heavily after the first mile. Sometimes the adverb heavily simply describes the action of something heavy — like kids' feet pounding heavily up the stairs, or an airplane landing heavily on the runway. There's also the "large amount" or "a lot" meaning, like when rain falls heavily or a director is heavily influenced by the cartoons of her childhood. Breathing heavily, on the other hand, means "with effort."
Vocabulary lists containing heavily
"Too Young to Drive?" and "Rules of the Road"
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Spelling Practice 1, Unit 5
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
French regions are responsible for maintaining some 3,700 high school buildings, with their representative association insisting they have "invested heavily" in recent years.
From Barron's ● Oct. 16, 2026
And again, the burden falls heavily on agricultural regions, where the fuel is used to power tractors, combines and trucks.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026
King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, one of two trusts heavily impacted, confirmed a year after the hack that one patient had also "died unexpectedly".
From BBC ● Oct. 16, 2026
These often measure text similarity or overlap, but they don’t heavily penalize the tiny errors that should fail in a health setting.
From Slate ● Oct. 16, 2026
This mammoth icecap presses down so heavily that it actually distorts the shape of the earth.
From "Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World" by Jennifer Armstrong
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
