weight

American  

[weyt] / weɪt /

noun

• weights
  plural

1. the amount or quantity of heaviness or mass; amount a thing weighs.

2. Physics. the force that gravitation exerts upon a body, equal to the mass of the body times the local acceleration of gravity: commonly taken, in a region of constant gravitational acceleration, as a measure of mass.

3. a system of units for expressing heaviness or mass.

   avoirdupois weight.

4. a unit of heaviness or mass.

   The pound is a common weight in English-speaking countries.

5. a body of determinate mass, as of metal, for using on a balance or scale in weighing objects, substances, etc.

6. a specific quantity of a substance that is determined by weighing or that weighs a fixed amount.

   a half-ounce weight of gold dust.

7. any heavy load, mass, or object.

   Put down that weight and rest your arms.

8. an object used or useful solely because of its heaviness.

   the weights of a clock.

9. a mental or moral burden, as of care, sorrow, or responsibility.

   Knowing you are safe takes a weight off my mind.

10. importance, moment, consequence, or effective influence.

    an opinion of great weight.

    Synonyms:

    significance, import, efficacy, power, effect

11. Statistics. a measure of the relative importance of an item in a statistical population.

12. (of clothing, textiles, etc.)

    1. relative heaviness or thickness as related to warmth or to seasonal use (often used in combination).

       a winter-weight jacket.

    2. relative heaviness or thickness as related to use.

       a bolt of coat-weight woolen cloth.

13. Printing. (of type) the degree of blackness or boldness.

14. (especially in boxing) a division or class to which a contestant belongs according to how much he weighs.

    two brothers who fight professionally in the same weight.

15. the total amount the jockey, saddle, and leads must weigh on a racehorse during a race, according to the conditions of the race.

    Jacinto has a weight of 122 pounds in the seventh race.

16. the stress or accent value given a sound, syllable, or word.

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verb (used with object)

• weights,
  present (3rd person singular)
• weighted,
  past participle,  past
• weighting
  present participle

1. to add weight to; load with additional weight.

   to weight sacks before dumping them overboard.

2. to load (fabrics, threads, etc.) with mineral or other matter to increase the weight or bulk.

3. to burden with or as if with weight (often followed bydown ).

   Financial worries have weighted that family down for years.

   Synonyms:

   load, saddle, encumber, oppress

4. Statistics. to give a statistical weight to.

5. to bias or slant toward a particular goal or direction; manipulate.

   The teacher weighted the test so students who had read both books would make the highest marks.

6. to assign (a racehorse) a specific weight to carry in a race.

   The handicapper weighted Dapper Dan with 128 pounds.

idioms

1. carry weight, to have importance or significance; influence.

   Her opinion is certain to carry weight.

2. pull one's weight, to contribute one's rightful share of work to a project or job: Also pull one's own weight.

   We will finish in time if we each pull our weight.

3. by weight, according to measurement of heaviness or mass.

   Rates are determined by weight.

4. throw one's weight around / about, to use one's power and influence, especially beyond the bounds of propriety, to secure some personal gain.

weight British  

/ weɪt /

noun

1. a measure of the heaviness of an object; the amount anything weighs

2.  W.  physics the vertical force experienced by a mass as a result of gravitation. It equals the mass of the body multiplied by the acceleration of free fall. Its units are units of force (such as newtons or poundals) but is often given as a mass unit (kilogram or pound)

3. a system of units used to express the weight of a substance

   troy weight

4. a unit used to measure weight

   the kilogram is the weight used in the metric system

5. any mass or heavy object used to exert pressure or weigh down

6. an oppressive force

   the weight of cares

7. any heavy load

   the bag was such a weight

8. the main or greatest force: preponderance

   the weight of evidence

9. importance, influence, or consequence

   his opinion carries weight

10. statistics one of a set of coefficients assigned to items of a frequency distribution that are analysed in order to represent the relative importance of the different items

11. printing the apparent blackness of a printed typeface

12. slang a pound of a drug, esp cannabis

13. informal to do one's full or proper share of a task

14. informal to act in an overauthoritarian or aggressive manner

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verb

1. to add weight to

2. to burden or oppress

3. to add importance, value, etc, to one side rather than another; bias; favour

   a law weighted towards landlords

4. statistics to attach a weight or weights to

5. to make (fabric, threads, etc) heavier by treating with mineral substances, etc

weight Scientific  

/ wāt /

1. The force with which an object near the Earth or another celestial body is attracted toward the center of the body by gravity. An object's weight depends on its mass and the strength of the gravitational pull. The weight of an object in an aircraft flying at high altitude is less than its weight at sea level, since the strength of gravity decreases with increasing distance from the Earth's surface. The SI unit of weight is the newton, though units of mass such as grams or kilograms are used more informally to denote the weight of some mass, understood as the force acting on it in a gravitational field with a strength of one G. The pound is also still used as a unit of weight.

2. A system of such measures, such as avoirdupois weight or troy weight.

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weight Cultural  

1. The force exerted on any object by gravity.

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weight More Idioms  

1. see by weight; carry weight; dead weight; pull one's weight; put on weight; throw one's weight around; worth one's weight in gold;

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Usage

Although most hand-held calculators can translate pounds into kilograms, an absolute conversion factor between these two units is not technically sound. A pound is a unit of force, and a kilogram is a unit of mass. When the unit pound is used to indicate the force that a gravitational field exerts on a mass, the pound is a unit of weight. Mistaking weight for mass is tantamount to confusing the electric charges on two objects with the forces of attraction (or repulsion) between them. Like charge, the mass of an object is an intrinsic property of that object: electrons have a unique mass, protons have a unique mass, and some particles, such as photons, have no mass. Weight, on the other hand, is a force due to the gravitational attraction between two bodies. For example, one's weight on the Moon is 1/6 of one's weight on Earth. Nevertheless, one's mass on the Moon is identical to one's mass on Earth. The reason that hand-held calculators can translate between units of weight and units of mass is that the majority of us use calculators on the planet Earth at sea level, where the conversion factor is constant for all practical purposes.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• self-weight
  noun
• weighter
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• weights
  plural

Participles

• weighting
  present
• weighted
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• weight
  simple
• weights
  simple
• have weighted
  perfect
• has weighted
  perfect
• am weighting
  progressive
• are weighting
  progressive
• is weighting
  progressive
• have been weighting
  perfect progressive
• has been weighting
  perfect progressive

Past

• weighted
  simple
• had weighted
  perfect
• was weighting
  progressive
• were weighting
  progressive
• had been weighting
  perfect progressive

Future

• will weight
  simple
• will have weighted
  perfect
• will be weighting
  progressive
• will have been weighting
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of weight

First recorded before 1000; Middle English (noun); Old English wiht (cognate with Dutch wicht, German Gewicht ); see weigh ¹, -th ¹

Explanation

The weight of a cat on your lap might not bother you, but the weight of your 156 pound Rottweiler? Oh boy. Weight refers to the heaviness of a person or object. In physics, weight is a precise measurement based on the force that gravity exerts on a mass. Got that? All meanings of the word weight are related to this sense of heaviness. Something that is important, like testimony at a trial or a serious conversation, can be described as having weight, even if you can't put it on a scale.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

weight weights weighted weighting

"In turn, this can lead to poor weight gain, growth problems, and developmental delays," the spokesperson said.

From BBC ● Aug. 16, 2026

He works relentlessly in the weight room gaining strength.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 16, 2026

With people making potentially life-or-death decisions based on his posts, Esko said he felt the weight of responsibility.

From Barron's ● Aug. 16, 2026

Losing weight can reduce some of these risks, but achieving substantial weight loss through diet and exercise alone can be difficult.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 15, 2026

The weight of a few coins clinks in my pocket; I shrug on my coat, slipping through the parlor and out the front door.

From "The Brightwood Code" by Monica Hesse

For most of the past 100 years, research has found that an equally weighted portfolio of stocks has generally outperformed the traditional index, which weights the different stocks according to their market value.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 12, 2026

Its weights, though, are open for users to play with, giving the model a level of adaptability.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 11, 2026

The U.S. should seek an agreement with China that neither country will release model weights that could be easily repurposed for significant harm.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 11, 2026

People who lift weights may be healthier in other ways, though the researchers adjusted for many such factors, including diet, smoking and aerobic activity.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 10, 2026

It looked about as heavy as Lucas’s weights.

From "Okay for Now" by Gary D. Schmidt

But the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 are weighted by market value, and outsize gains from a handful of superstar companies continue to drive returns.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026

Responses for the governor’s race poll came from a weighted sample of 2,310 respondents considered likely voters in the November election, out of a larger group of 4,207 registered voters throughout California.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026

Curaleaf is offering $4 a share for Aurora, representing a premium of more than 45% based on Aurora’s 30-day volume weighted average price.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 11, 2026

The idea that this has to be weighted down with law-review articles and footnotes and arcana about the history of a three-part test is a way of obfuscating, right?

From Slate ● Aug. 10, 2026

The expected value of a quantity is simply the average of its values weighted according to their probabilities.

From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos

The recent increase in the U.S. weighting is owing to his more constructive approach on software stocks.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 30, 2026

Speaking to the Jimmy's Jobs of the Future podcast,, external he said there would be "more social value weighting in public contracts", with a particular focus on firms offering such placements.

From BBC ● Jul. 30, 2026

A neutral weighting on the U.S. in a global equity fund is around two thirds.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 30, 2026

Ng estimates that the banking sector could see the largest weighting reduction of 623-699 basis points under the proposed expansion.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 1, 2026

“Any merchant who advertises ‘Honest Scales’ must have been thinking about weighting them,” she says.

From "The Woman Warrior" by Maxine Hong Kingston

Related Words

• clout
• consequence
• emphasis
• impact
• influence
• magnitude
• power
• prestige
• significance
• substance
• value