heavy going
Idioms-
Also, heavy weather.
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Difficult, as in Tom found calculus heavy going , or It's going to be heavy weather for us from here on . The first expression originally referred to a road or path that was hard to negotiate; the variant alludes to bad weather at sea. [Mid-1800s]
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make heavy weather of . Make hard work or a fuss over something, especially unnecessarily. For example, They made heavy weather of the differences between their proposals, which actually seemed much alike . This use of weather likens a commotion to a storm. [Mid-1900s]
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.
Lewis’ prose can be heavy going, but the action flows effortlessly in DiPietro’s play.
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 5, 2023
Progress was heavy going, though, stalled by residents suspicious of the mayor's intentions who had fears of gentrification, being priced out and forced away.
From BBC • Jul. 8, 2022
Some of the material in “The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails” is relatively heavy going.
From New York Times • Dec. 13, 2021
It seems like heavy going for a robot that cost £700,000 to develop but, if all goes to plan, this is the future of fruit-picking.
From The Guardian • May 26, 2019
It made for heavy going and they had to shovel their way in places with a plank they carried in the lower rack of the cart.
From "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy
Definitions 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.
