Lightweight

How to spell lightweight

11 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce lightweight

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does lightweight mean?

1. adjectiveWeighing relatively little, or made of materials that are not heavy.
2. adjectiveLacking in seriousness, depth, or influence.
3. nounA competitor in a boxing or wrestling weight class below welterweight.

Lightweight in a sentence

• adjective

  The new laptop is so lightweight that she barely notices it in her bag.

• adjective

  Critics dismissed the report as a lightweight piece of research with little real analysis.

• noun

  The young boxer fought as a lightweight before moving up a division.

• adjective

  For the summer hike they packed a lightweight tent and a thin sleeping mat.

• adjective

  His rivals unfairly painted him as a lightweight candidate who could not handle the role.

• noun

  The title bout featured two of the finest lightweight contenders of the decade.

Where does lightweight come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent English compound formed from two very old native words. The first element, 'light', descends from the Old English lēoht, which meant 'not heavy' and shares an ancient Germanic root with words for buoyancy and ease; it is unrelated in origin to the other 'light' meaning brightness, though the two have long been spelled the same. The second element, 'weight', comes from the Old English gewiht, meaning 'heaviness' or 'a measured amount of heaviness', built on the verb to weigh. The pairing began as a literal description of something light to carry and was first recorded in this combined form in the 1500s. By the 1800s it had taken on its sporting use as a boxing and wrestling category, and from there grew the figurative sense of a person lacking seriousness or influence. The spelling trap is the silent 'gh' in both halves of the word, a fossil of the old Germanic sounds that English no longer pronounces.

How the word is built

• light (Old English lēoht: not heavy)
• weight (Old English gewiht: heaviness), an English compound