Weights

How to spell weights

7 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce weights

What does weights mean?

1. nounHeavy objects, especially metal blocks used for exercise or for measuring on a scale.
2. verbAssigns relative importance to factors, or adds weight to something, in the third-person singular present.

Weights in a sentence

• noun

  He lifted the free weights at the gym every morning.

• verb

  The formula weights recent sales data more heavily than older figures.

• noun

  The old kitchen scale came with a set of brass weights.

• verb

  The grading system weights the final exam at sixty percent.

Where does weights come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the plural and third-person form of weight, a word that traces back to the Old English wiht, meaning the heaviness of a thing or the measured amount it tips a scale to. That noun grew from the same Germanic root as the verb wegan, 'to lift, carry, or weigh', which is also the ancestor of 'weigh' itself. The silent gh in the spelling preserves an old guttural sound, once pronounced roughly like the ch in Scottish 'loch', that English speakers stopped saying centuries ago but kept writing. Over time weight came to cover both physical heaviness and figurative importance, so a single voice can carry 'weight' in a meeting. The plural weights names individual measured masses, such as the iron blocks used on a scale or in a gym, while the spelling trap remains the unpronounced gh that survives only on the page.

How the word is built

• weight (heaviness, from Old English wiht)
• -s (plural / third-person singular ending)

Words that sound like weights

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• waits: Stays in one place or delays action until an expected event happens (third-person singular).