weighty
Americanadjective
-
having considerable weight; heavy; ponderous.
a weighty bundle.
- Antonyms:
- light
-
burdensome or troublesome.
the weightier cares of sovereignty.
-
important or momentous.
weighty negotiations.
- Synonyms:
- consequential, grave, serious, significant
- Antonyms:
- unimportant, light
-
having or exerting influence, power, etc.; influential.
a weighty merchant of Boston.
adjective
-
having great weight
-
important or momentous
-
causing anxiety or worry
Synonym Usage
See heavy.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of weighty
Explanation
Weighty things are either very heavy or extremely important and worrisome. Putting your weighty cat on a diet might be a weighty issue that nags at you. If your luggage is too weighty, you'll have to pay an extra fee at the airport. And if you've got a mind full of weighty problems, you won't be able to fall asleep on your long flight. Sometimes this adjective is also used to mean "influential," like the weighty influence your SAT scores might have on your chances of being accepted at a competitive college.
Vocabulary lists containing weighty
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.
See Examples For:
A marriage story weighty enough to bear two fascinatingly complex couples, it explores a web of isolation and desire knotted with the divisions and woes of society today: class, labor, media.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 23, 2026
Picking a major has long been a weighty decision for college students, but the financial stakes appear to be getting higher in the AI era, according to economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 25, 2026
Xi is visiting President Trump in Washington this week for a summit that will cover weighty topics including trade, artificial-intelligence safety and relations with Taiwan.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 2026
Kenneth Branagh, the British actor whose career has been built on weighty roles such as Shakespeare's Henry V, is perhaps an unlikely action hero.
From Barron's ● Sep. 2, 2026
The streets wind in and around, the houses are large, ponderous, Georgian, set off with weighty shrubbery.
From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood
A couple of the disputes are a bit weightier than a question of whether someone’s yard goes to here . . . or to here.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 12, 2026
The couple are set to return to the presidential residence, but this time Mutharika's in-tray will be far weightier.
From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2025
Close, who reprised her Tony-winning performance as Norma in the 2017 Broadway revival and added layers of authenticity burnished by time, made the musical seem weightier than it is.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 12, 2024
He argued that some of the removals might stand a court test as the case progresses, noting that some of the books dealt more with “juvenile, flatulent humor” than weightier subjects.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 6, 2024
I wasn’t going anywhere until morning, at least, and I wanted to enjoy a few more minutes with my friends unburdened by weightier things.
From "Hollow City" by Ransom Riggs
The city's historically lucrative wholesale and retail trade remains one of its weightiest sectors, accounting for almost 25 percent of GDP in the first nine months of 2024.
From Barron's ● Mar. 1, 2026
For nearly 500 years the Court of Session has considered the thorniest and weightiest matters of the moment.
From BBC ● Sep. 19, 2023
Opinionpalooza, aka June, aka the end of the Supreme Court term, when the year’s weightiest opinions tend to come out.
From Slate ● Jun. 1, 2023
Admittedly, the lawsuit — essentially, a dispute among insurers over the bill for all that cracked fiberglass and teak — won’t be the weightiest matter heard in federal court in Seattle.
From Seattle Times ● May 28, 2023
And now, as regards the last and weightiest consideration,--my relation to my ward,--ask any one whom you may please to interrogate here, whether I have not always been Ernestine's advocate and protector.
From Only a Girl: or, A Physician for the Soul. by Wilhelmine von Hillern
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
