weigh - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Middle English weyen, from Old English wegan, from Proto-West Germanic *wegan, from Proto-Germanic *weganą (“to move, carry, weigh”), from Proto-Indo-European *wéǵʰeti, from *weǵʰ- (“to bring, transport”).

Cognates

Cognate with Scots wey, wee, Dutch wegen, German wiegen, wägen, Danish veje, Norwegian Bokmål veie, Norwegian Nynorsk vega. Doublet of wedge, wagon, way, and vector.

weigh (third-person singular simple present weighs, present participle weighing, simple past and past participle weighed)

  1. (transitive) To determine the weight of an object.
  2. (transitive) Often with "out", to measure a certain amount of something by its weight, e.g. for sale.
    He weighed out two kilos of oranges for a client.
  3. (transitive, figuratively) To determine the intrinsic value or merit of an object, to evaluate.
    Synonyms: assess, price, value; see also Thesaurus:appraise
    You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.
    He took a long time weighing his options.
    • 2011, Roy F. Baumeister, John Tierney, Willpower, →ISBN, page 103:
      As they started picking features, customers would carefully weigh the choices, but as decision fatigue set in they'd start settling for whatever the default option was.
  4. (intransitive, figuratively, obsolete) To judge; to estimate.
  5. (transitive) To consider a subject. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
  6. (intransitive, copulative, stative) To have a certain weight.
    I weigh ten and a half stone.
    • 1958 June, “First Battery Railcars on B.R.”, in Railway Magazine, page 419:
      Each half-section of the battery weighs about eight tons, and the two underframes had to be strengthened to take this weight.
  7. (intransitive) To have weight; to be heavy; to press down.
  8. (intransitive) To be considered as important; to have weight in the intellectual balance.
  9. (transitive, nautical) To raise an anchor free of the seabed.
  10. (intransitive, nautical) To weigh anchor.
  1. To bear up; to raise; to lift into the air; to swing up.
  1. (obsolete) To consider as worthy of notice; to regard.

to determine the weight of an object

to weigh out

to consider a subject

to have a certain weight

nautical: to raise an anchor

weigh (plural weighs)

  1. The act of weighing, of measuring the weight
    Give the sugar a quick weigh.