heavy hitter

American  

noun

1. a baseball player who makes many extra-base hits.

2. a very important or influential person.

   the secretary of state and other heavy hitters.

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heavy hitter British  

noun

1. informal another term for big hitter

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heavy hitter Idioms  

1. An important or influential individual or organization. For example, This publishing house is one of the heavy hitters in the textbook industry. This expression originated in sports such as boxing, where it literally meant “hitting hard,” and was transferred to other enterprises in the mid-1900s.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• heavy-hitter
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of heavy hitter

First recorded in 1975–80

Example Sentences

Cornerstone is a heavy hitter in Washington; it took in $44 million in 2023 from nearly 300 clients.

From Seattle Times • Apr. 16, 2024

Google’s strength in search makes it a heavy hitter in the lucrative advertising market, its biggest revenue source.

From Reuters • Oct. 30, 2023

Dubois is a heavy hitter, even if he lacks speed.

From Washington Times • Aug. 24, 2023

Zhang is a heavy hitter and the home fighter cannot afford any complacency.

From BBC • Apr. 14, 2023

There was one out when Bart Ferguson came up, and Bart was a heavy hitter.

From Baseball Joe of the Silver Stars or The Rivals of Riverside by Chadwick, Lester