Heavyweight

How to spell heavyweight

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce heavyweight

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does heavyweight mean?

1. nounThe heaviest category of competitor in boxing, wrestling, or similar sports, or an athlete in that class.
2. nounA person or organisation with great importance, power, or influence in a field.
3. adjectiveSerious, substantial, or carrying significant influence or importance.

Heavyweight in a sentence

• noun

  The champion fought as a heavyweight for most of his career.

• noun

  The panel included a political heavyweight from the previous government.

• adjective

  The conference attracted a genuinely heavyweight lineup of speakers.

• noun

  Two heavyweight boxers headlined the card on Saturday night.

• noun

  The firm is now a heavyweight in the renewable energy sector.

• adjective

  She brought a heavyweight reputation to the negotiating table.

Where does heavyweight come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a compound formed from two native English words, both of which trace back to Old English. The first part, 'heavy', comes from the Old English hefig, meaning 'weighty' or 'burdensome', which itself grew from hebban, 'to lift', so the original sense was literally something that takes effort to raise. The second part, 'weight', comes from the Old English gewiht, the measure of how heavy a thing is, related to wegan, 'to carry or weigh'. The two were joined in the nineteenth century, first as a boxing and wrestling term for the top category of competitor by body mass, and the figurative sense of an important, influential person followed soon after. Because both elements are everyday words, the only spelling trap is remembering that 'weight' keeps its silent 'gh' and the 'ei' order, a relic of the older Germanic spelling.

How the word is built

• heavy (Old English hefig: of great weight)
• weight (Old English gewiht: measure of heaviness)