heavy

heavy

synonyms, antonyms, definitions, examples & translations of heavy in English

English Online Dictionary. What means heavy‎? What does heavy mean?

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English hevy, heviȝ, from Old English hefiġ, hefeġ, hæfiġ (“heavy; important, grave, severe, serious; oppressive, grievous; slow, dull”), from Proto-West Germanic *habīg (“heavy, hefty, weighty”), from Proto-Germanic *habīgaz (“heavy, hefty, weighty”), from Proto-Indo-European *keh₂p- (“to take, grasp, hold”).

Cognate with Scots hevy, havy, heavy (“heavy”), Dutch hevig (“violent, severe, intense, acute”), Middle Low German hēvich (“violent, fierce, intense”), German hebig (compare heftig (“fierce, severe, intense, violent, heavy”)), Icelandic höfugur (“heavy, weighty, important”), Latin capāx (“large, wide, roomy, spacious, capacious, capable, apt”).

Pronunciation

  • enPR: hevʹi
  • (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA(key): /ˈhɛv.i/
  • (General Australian, New Zealand) IPA(key): /ˈhev.i/
  • Rhymes: -ɛvi

Adjective

heavy (comparative heavier, superlative heaviest)

  1. (of a physical object) Having great weight.
  2. (of a topic) Serious, somber.
  3. Not easy to bear; burdensome; oppressive.
  4. (British, slang, dated) Good.
  5. (dated, late 1960s, 1970s, US) Profound.
  6. (of a rate of flow) High, great.
    • 1998, Stanley George Clayton, ""Menstruation" in Encyclopedia Britannica
      The ovarian response to gonadotropic hormones may be erratic at first, so that irregular or heavy bleeding sometimes occurs
  7. (slang) Armed.
  8. (of music) Loud, distorted, or intense.
  9. (of weather) Hot and humid.
  10. (of a person) Doing the specified activity more intensely than most other people.
  11. (of the eyes) With eyelids difficult to keep open due to tiredness.
  12. (of food) High in fat or protein; difficult to digest.
  13. Of great force, power, or intensity; deep or intense.
  14. Laden with that which is weighty; encumbered; burdened; bowed down, either with an actual burden, or with grief, pain, disappointment, etc.
  15. Slow; sluggish; inactive; or lifeless, dull, inanimate, stupid.
  16. Impeding motion; cloggy; clayey.
    a heavy road; a heavy soil
  17. Not raised or leavened.
  18. (of wines or spirits) Having much body or strength.
  19. (obsolete) With child; pregnant.
  20. (physics) Containing one or more isotopes that are heavier than the normal one.
  21. (petroleum) Having high viscosity.
  22. (finance) Of a market: in which the price of shares is declining.
  23. (nautical, military) Heavily-armed.
  24. (aviation, of an aircraft) Having a relatively high takeoff weight and payload.
    1. Having a maximum takeoff weight exceeding 300,000 tons, as almost all widebodies do, generating high wake turbulence.
Synonyms
  • sweer/swear
Antonyms
  • light
Derived terms

English terms starting with “heavy”

Related terms
  • heave
  • heft
Descendants
  • Sranan Tongo: hebi
Translations

Adverb

heavy (comparative more heavy, superlative most heavy)

  1. In a heavy manner; weightily; heavily; gravely.
    heavy laden with their sins
  2. (colloquial, nonstandard) To a great degree; greatly.
  3. (India, colloquial) very
Derived terms
  • hang heavy
  • heavy-laden

Noun

heavy (plural heavies or heavys)

  1. (slang) A villain or bad guy; the one responsible for evil or aggressive acts.
  2. (slang) A doorman, bouncer or bodyguard.
  3. A prominent figure; a "major player".
  4. (journalism, slang, chiefly in the plural) A newspaper of the quality press.
  5. (Should we move, merge or split(+) this sense?) (aviation) A relatively large multi-engined aircraft.
  6. (theater, archaic, slang) A serious theatrical role.
  7. (military, historical) A member of the heavy cavalry.
Derived terms
  • brain heavy
  • dog heavy
Translations

Verb

heavy (third-person singular simple present heavies, present participle heavying, simple past and past participle heavied)

  1. (often with "up") To make heavier.
  2. To sadden. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
  3. (Australia, New Zealand, informal) To use power or wealth to exert influence on, e.g., governments or corporations; to pressure.
    The union was well known for the methods it used to heavy many businesses.
    • 2001, Finola Moorhead, Darkness More Visible, Spinifex Press, Australia, page 557,
      But he is on the wrong horse, heavying me. My phone′s tapped. Well, he won′t find anything.
    • 2005, David Clune, Ken Turner (editors), The Premiers of New South Wales, 1856-2005, Volume 3: 1901-2005, page 421,
      But the next two days of the Conference also produced some very visible lobbying for the succession and apparent heavying of contenders like Brereton, Anderson and Mulock - much of it caught on television.

References

  • Heavy (aeronautics) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Etymology 2

From heave +‎ -y.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈhiːvi/

Adjective

heavy (comparative more heavy, superlative most heavy)

  1. Having the heaves.
    a heavy horse

See also

  • heavy cake

References

  • “heavy”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Anagrams

  • Havey, Yahve

Finnish

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈheʋi/, [ˈhe̞ʋi]
  • Rhymes: -eʋi

Noun

heavy

  1. Alternative spelling of hevi (“heavyrock”).

Declension

Further reading

  • “heavy”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎[1] (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 2023-07-02

German

Etymology

Borrowed from English heavy.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈhɛvi/

Adjective

heavy (strong nominative masculine singular heavyer, not comparable)

  1. (predicative, colloquial, probably slightly dated) heavy; intense; serious; shocking (extraordinary, especially in a bad way)
    Synonyms: heftig, krass, nicht ohne, ein starkes Stück

Spanish

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English heavy (metal).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈxebi/ [ˈxe.β̞i]
  • Rhymes: -ebi

Adjective

heavy m or f (masculine and feminine plural heavys)

  1. heavy (pertaining to heavy metal)
  2. heavy (intense)
  3. (Dominican Republic, informal) cool

Usage notes

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.

Further reading

  • “heavy”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10

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This article based on an article on Wiktionary. The list of authors can be seen in the page history there. The original work has been modified. This article is distributed under the terms of this license.