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:
It also helped show that an animated kids series can tackle weighty themes such as war, genocide, imperialism, sexism, propaganda and political corruption in a serialized story and be a hit.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 1, 2026
India's top judges often make news for their rulings or pronunciations on weighty matters of law.
From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2026
Alexander Köpeczi and Le Bu showed off weighty low notes as Sarastro and the Speaker.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026
This weighty destiny also explains why the Higashi villagers went out of their way to keep Yuru close.
From Salon ● Jul. 18, 2026
The man climbed the ladder and removed a weighty old-fashioned book with a leather cover.
From "The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm" by Nancy Farmer
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
She’s only in the movie for about half an hour, and though her character drives the action and ends the movie in spectacular fashion, that wasn’t enough in a category flush with weightier work.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 22, 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
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
We learned that a bright button is weightier than four volumes of Schopenhauer.
From "All Quiet on the Western Front: A Novel" by Erich Maria Remarque
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
Do they express themselves upon the weightiest subject considerately and with lawyerlike diffuseness, or on the most frivolous subject frivolously?
From The Invisible Lodge by Jean Paul
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.
