heavy – English adjective declension

English adjective forms of heavy

Adjective: heavy

Comparison Forms

Synthetic

Comparativeheavier
Superlativeheaviest

Perifrastic

Comparativemore heavy
Superlativemost heavy

Sample Sentences

  • Can you help me carry this? It's really heavy.
  • Use the scales to measure how heavy it is.
  • Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke.[…]A silver snaffle on a heavy leather watch guard which connected the pockets of his corduroy waistcoat, together with a huge gold stirrup in his Ascot tie, sufficiently proclaimed his tastes. [1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter II, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:]
  • But now, ten years later, after his recent shipwreck, he cannot compete as a runner, though he can outthrow the slighter Phaeacians with the heaviest discus. [2002, Eva Brann, Homeric Moments, page 48:]
  • In other research, scientists have found that people who kept cereal out in the open were often about 20 pounds heavier than people who kept cereal behind closed doors. [2015 May 18, Angus Chen, How We Store Food At Home Could Be Linked To How Much We Eat:]
  • When he was a child he was rather heavy, but today he is impressively fit.
  • "We're still in an existential-stakes war with the Pa'anuri, and possibly with our own destructive tendencies." ' "Sorry. That was pretty heavy for someone who just woke up." "Oh, I'm fine. Waking up alive has ALWAYS meant spending the day trying not to be dead." [2020 January 8, Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary, archived from the original on 13 Feb 2025:]
  • heavy yokes, expenses, undertakings, trials, news, etc.
  • The hand of the Lord was heavy upon them of Ashdod. [1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Samuel 5:6:]
  • The king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make. [1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:]
  • Sent hither by my Husband to impart the heavy news. [1814, William Wordsworth, The Excursion:]
  • This film is heavy.
  • The Moody Blues are, like, heavy.
  • 1998, Stanley George Clayton, ""Menstruation" in Encyclopedia Britannica
  • The ovarian response to gonadotropic hormones may be erratic at first, so that irregular or heavy bleeding sometimes occurs
  • Come heavy, or not at all.
  • Metal is heavier than rock.
  • This car is too heavy on gas.
  • He was a heavy sleeper, a heavy eater and a heavy smoker – certainly not an ideal husband.
  • He was described in the theatrical prints as the “veteran Blenkinsop”—“the useful Blenkinsop”—“that old favourite of the public, Blenkinsop”—those parts in the drama, which are called the heavy fathers, were usually assigned to this veteran, who, indeed, acted the heavy father in public, as in private life. [1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 29, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:]
  • Watch for the signs of fatigue, including yawning, blinking and heavy eyes. [2021 December 26, The Road Ahead, Brisbane, page 11, column 3:]
  • Cheese-stuffed sausage is too heavy to eat before exercising.
  • it was a heavy storm; a heavy slumber in bed; a heavy punch
  • The surf was not heavy, and there was no undertow, so we made shore easily, effecting an equally easy landing. [1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter IV, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:]
  • [Rural solar plant] schemes are of little help to industry or other heavy users of electricity. Nor is solar power yet as cheap as the grid. For all that, the rapid arrival of electric light to Indian villages is long overdue. When the national grid suffers its next huge outage, as it did in July 2012 when hundreds of millions were left in the dark, look for specks of light in the villages. [2013 July 20, “Out of the gloom”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845:]
  • his eyes were heavy with sleep; she was heavy with child
  • The heavy [sorrowing] nobles all in council were. [1614–1615, Homer, “(please specify the book number)”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., Homer’s Odysses. […], London: […] Rich[ard] Field [and William Jaggard], for Nathaniell Butter, published 1615, →OCLC; republished in The Odysseys of Homer, […], volume (please specify the book number), London: John Russell Smith, […], 1857, →OCLC:]
  • A light wife doth make a heavy husband. [c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:]
  • Seating himselfe within a darkesome cave, / (Such places heavy Saturnists doe crave,) / Where yet the gladsome day was never seene […] [1613, William Browne, Britannia's Pastorals:]
  • a heavy gait, looks, manners, style, etc.
  • a heavy writer or book
  • whilst the heavy ploughman snores [c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:]
  • a heavy, dull, degenerate mind [1700, [John] Dryden, “Cymon and Iphigenia, from Boccace”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:]
  • Neither [is] his ear heavy, that it cannot hear. [1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Isaiah 59:1:]
  • The next day we only made some eight miles, as the road was heavy beyond all belief. It lay through a desert region of country which was ancle-deep ^([sic]) in soda and alkali dust. [1861, E. J. Guerin, Mountain Charley, page 37:]
  • a heavy road; a heavy soil
  • heavy bread
  • heavy water
  • The very low prices of brandy, and the continuance of a heavy market for such a length of time, have begun to attract buyers; […] [1819, The Scots Magazine, volumes 83-84, page 577:]
  • The oil market is heavy, each day bringing along further supplies of shares from people who have not tired of the long-continued decline in the market. [1922, The Investor's Monthly Manual: A Newspaper for Investors, page 626:]

Adjectives inflected like heavy

snubby, snithy, snorty, snoopy, sainty, screwy, scowly, schizy, smacky, slimsy, slanty, slaggy, songly, soothy, shysty, shiply, skeezy, beastly, yearny, whip-creamy, etc. (List truncated at 20 adjectives)

Etymology

1. From Middle English hevy, heviȝ, from Old English hefiġ, hefeġ, hæfiġ (“heavy; important, grave, severe, serious; oppressive, grievous; slow, dull”), from Proto-West Germanic *habīg (“heavy, hefty, weighty”), from Proto-Germanic *habīgaz (“heavy, hefty, weighty”), from Proto-Indo-European *kap- (“to take, grasp, hold”). Equivalent to heave + -y. Related to have.
2. Cognate with Scots hevy, havy, heavy (“heavy”), Saterland Frisian heeuwich, häwich (“violent, angry”), West Frisian hevich (“violent”), Dutch hevig (“violent, severe, intense, acute”), German Low German hevig (“violent, fierce, intense, angry”), German hebig (compare heftig (“fierce, severe, intense, violent, heavy”)), Icelandic höfugur (“heavy, weighty, important”), Latin capāx (“large, wide, roomy, spacious, capacious, capable, apt”).
3. Compare typologically Russian объёмный (obʺjómnyj), ёмкий (jómkij) (akin to име́ть (imétʹ), взять (vzjatʹ)). See: Dutch Adjectives 'hevig', Latin Adjectives 'capāx'.

Verbs referencing "heavy"

Dutch Adjectives hevig.