weight

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A measure of the heaviness of an object.
2. n. The force with which a body is attracted to Earth or another celestial body, equal to the product of the object's mass and the acceleration of gravity.
3. n. A unit measure of gravitational force: a table of weights and measures.
4. n. A system of such measures: avoirdupois weight; troy weight.
5. n. The measured heaviness of a specific object: a two-pound weight.
6. n. An object used principally to exert a force by virtue of its gravitational attraction to Earth, especially:
7. n. A metallic solid used as a standard of comparison in weighing.
8. n. An object used to hold something else down.
9. n. A counterbalance in a machine.
10. n. Sports A heavy object, such as a dumbbell, lifted for exercise or in athletic competition.
11. n. Excessive fat; corpulence: exercising in order to lose weight.
12. n. Statistics A factor assigned to a number in a computation, as in determining an average, to make the number's effect on the computation reflect its importance.
13. n. Oppressiveness; pressure: the weight of responsibilities.
14. n. The greater part; preponderance: The weight of the evidence is against the defendant.
15. n. Influence, importance, or authority: Her approval carried great weight. See Synonyms at importance.
16. n. Ponderous quality: the weight of the speaker's words.
17. n. Sports A classification according to comparative lightness or heaviness. Often used in combination: a heavyweight boxer.
18. n. The heaviness or thickness of a fabric in relation to a particular season or use. Often used in combination: a summerweight jacket.
19. v. To add to, by or as if by attaching a weight; make heavy or heavier.
20. v. To load down, burden, or oppress.
21. v. To increase the weight or body of (fabrics) by treating with chemicals.
22. v. Statistics To assign weights or a weight to.
23. v. To cause to have a slant or bias: weighted the rules in favor of homeowners.
24. v. Sports To assign to (a horse) the weight it must carry as a handicap in a race.
25. idiom. by weight According to weight rather than volume or other measure.
26. idiom. make weight Sports To weigh within the limits stipulated for an athletic contest.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. In mathematics: The number of roots of x appertaining to any given function or functions of x, which must be employed to express a quantity composed of the product of the coefficients.
2. n. With respect to any selected variable in a system of homogeneous functions, the sum of the weights in respect to such variable of the several coefficients of which the quantity is composed (the weight of each several coefficient meaning the index of the power of the selected variable in that term of the given function or functions which is affected with such coefficient).
3. n. In archery, the strength of a bow measured in pounds by the pull or weight necessary to fully draw the bow.
4. n. Downward force of a body; gravity; heaviness; ponderousness; more exactly, the resultant of the force of the earth's gravitation and of the centrifugal pressure from its axis of rotation, considered as a property of the body affected by it. Considerable confusion has existed between weight and mass, the latter being the quantity of matter as measured by the ratio of the momentum of a body to its velocity. Weight, in this the proper sense of the word, is something which varies with the latitude of the station at which the heavy body is, being greater by of itself at the poles than at the equator; it also varies considerably with the elevation above the sea ( for every kilometer). The weights of different bodies at one and the same station were proved, by Newton's experiments with pendulums of different material, to be in the ratio of their masses, and irrespective of their chemical composition; consequently, a balance which shows the equality of weight of two bodies at one station also shows the equality of their masses. In determining the specific gravity of a body, it is hung by a fine thread to one pan of the balance, and immersed completely in water. The reduced number of pounds, ounces, etc., which is required in the other pan to balance the first, under these circumstances, is called the weight of the body in water. In like manner, we speak of the weight in air and the weight in water. These expressions forbid our conceiving of weight as synonymous with the quantity of matter; and yet, when a pound is said to be a unit of weight, although it is intended to be carried up mountains and to distant places, mass or quantity of matter, must be understood since there is no important quantity but the quantity of matter which a pound or a kilogram measures. The confusion is increased when the pound is defined, as it still is in the United States, by the weight of a certain standard in air, without reference to the height of the barometer and thermometer. In the older books on mechanics, a pound is taken as a force, and the quantity of matter is obtained by dividing the weight by the measure of gravity; but now both the theoretical books and the legal definitions of the standards used in weighing make the pound, kilo, etc., to be masses, or quantities of matter, whose weight is obtained by multiplying them by the acceleration of gravity at any station. Nevertheless, the older system still finds a few supporters. It was long after Galileo had firmly established the law of falling bodies before it occurred to anybody that weight was a force. Gravity, so far as common observation shows, draws bodies to the earth alone, and that in parallel lines, and Galileo had shown that it accelerates all bodies alike, whether they are great or small, so that there was nothing to suggest the idea of force, especially as that idea was then in its infancy, and had not attained its present prominence in the minds of men. Weight in those days being looked upon as a property of single bodies, and not as subsisting between pairs of bodies, was necessarily confounded with mass; and a mental inertia, or natural clinging to old conceptions, kept up the confusion after Newton had demonstrated the true law of gravitation. For the units of weight, see def. 5. Abbreviated ut.
5. n. Mass; relative quantity of matter.
6. n. A heavy mass; specifically, something used on account of its weight or its mass. Thus, the use. fulness of the weights that a man holds in his hands in leaping or jumping lies in the addition they impart to his momentum, and their dragging him down is a disadvantage: but the weights of a clock are for giving a downward pull, and their momentum is practically nothing.
7. n. Specifically, a body of determinate mass, intended to be used on a balance or scale for measuring the weight or mass of the body in the other pan or part of the scale (as the platform in a platform-scale).
8. n. A system of units for expressing thy weight or mass of bodies. Avoirdupois weight is founded on the avoirdupois pound (see pound), which is equal to 453.5926525 grams. It is divided into 16 ounces, and each ounce into 16 drams; 112 (in the United States commonly 100) pounds make a hundredweight, and 20 hundredweights a ton. (See ton.) The stone is 14 pounds. Troy weight is founded on the troy pound, which is 373.242 grams. It is divided into 12 ounces, each ounce into 20 pennyweights, and each pennyweight into 24 grains. But formerly the pennyweight was divided into 32 real grains. There was also an ideal subdivision of the grain into 20 mites, each of 24 droites, each of 20 peroits, each of 24 blanks. The goldsmiths also divided the ounce troy into 24 carats of 4 grains each for gold and silver, and into 150 carats of 4 grains each for diamonds. Troy weight formerly employed for many purposes, is now only used for gold and silver. Apothecaries' weight, still used in the United States for dispensing medicine, divides the troy ounce into 8 drams, each dram into 3 scruples, and each scruple into 20 grains, which are identical with troy grains. For weight in the metric system, see metric.
9. n. Pressure; burden; care; responsibility.
10. n. In coal-mining, subsidence of the roof due to pressure from above, which takes effect as the coal is worked away. In long-wall working, the weight is usually of importance, as causing the coal, after it has been holed, to “get itself”—that is, to break down without the necessity of using powder, wedges, or something similar. Properly, “weight” is the cause and “weighting” the result, but the two words are often used with nearly the same meaning.
11. n. Importance; specifically, the importance of a fact as evidence tending to establish a conclusion; efficacy; power of influencing the conduct of persons and the course of events; effective influence in general. In calculations by least squares, the weight assigned to an observation is its effect upon the result, expressed by its equivalence to a certain number of concordant observations of standard accuracy.
12. n. In medicine, a sensation of oppression or heaviness over the whole body or over a part of it, as the head or stomach.
13. To add or attach a weight or weights to; load with additional weight; add to the heaviness of.
14. In dyeing, to load (the threads) with minerals or other foreign matters mixed with the dyes, for the purpose of making the fabrics appear thick and heavy.
15. In founding, to bind (the parts of a flask) together by means of weights placed on the top, in order to prevent the bursting of the flask under the pressure of the liquid metal.
16. n. See wecht.

Wiktionary

1. n. The force on an object due to the gravitational attraction between it and the Earth (or whatever astronomical object it is primarily influenced by).
2. n. An object used to make something heavier.
3. n. A standardized block of metal used in a balance to measure the mass of another object.
4. n. Importance or influence.
5. n. weightlifting A disc of iron, dumbbell, or barbell used for training the muscles.
6. n. physics Mass (net weight, atomic weight, molecular weight, troy weight, carat weight, etc.).
7. n. statistics A variable which multiplies a value for ease of statistical manipulation.
8. n. topology The smallest cardinality of a base.
9. n. typography The boldness of a font; the relative thickness of its strokes.
10. n. visual art The relative thickness of a drawn rule or painted brushstroke, line weight.
11. n. visual art The illusion of mass.
12. n. visual art The thickness and opacity of paint.
13. v. transitive To add weight to something, in order to make it heavier.
14. v. transitive To load, burden or oppress someone.
15. v. transitive, mathematics To assign weights to individual statistics.
16. v. transitive To bias something; to slant.
17. v. transitive, horse racing To handicap a horse with a specified weight.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The quality of being heavy; that property of bodies by which they tend toward the center of the earth; the effect of gravitative force, especially when expressed in certain units or standards, as pounds, grams, etc.
2. n. The quantity of heaviness; comparative tendency to the center of the earth; the quantity of matter as estimated by the balance, or expressed numerically with reference to some standard unit.
3. n. Hence, pressure; burden.
4. n. Importance; power; influence; efficacy; consequence; moment; impressiveness.
5. n. A scale, or graduated standard, of heaviness; a mode of estimating weight
6. n. A ponderous mass; something heavy
7. n. A definite mass of iron, lead, brass, or other metal, to be used for ascertaining the weight of other bodies.
8. n. (Mech.), obsolete The resistance against which a machine acts, as opposed to the power which moves it.
9. v. To load with a weight or weights; to load down; to make heavy; to attach weights to.
10. v. (Astron. & Physics) To assign a weight to; to express by a number the probable accuracy of, as an observation. See Weight of observations, under Weight.
11. v. (Dyeing) To load (fabrics) as with barite, to increase the weight, etc.
12. v. (Math.) to assign a numerical value expressing relative importance to (a measurement), to be multiplied by the value of the measurement in determining averages or other aggregate quantities.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. an artifact that is heavy
2. n. a system of units used to express the weight of something
3. v. present with a bias
4. n. (statistics) a coefficient assigned to elements of a frequency distribution in order to represent their relative importance
5. n. an oppressive feeling of heavy force
6. v. weight down with a load
7. n. sports equipment used in calisthenic exercises and weightlifting; it is not attached to anything and is raised and lowered by use of the hands and arms
8. n. a unit used to measure weight
9. n. the vertical force exerted by a mass as a result of gravity
10. n. the relative importance granted to something