heavy

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 *keh₂p- (“to take, grasp, hold”). Cognates: Cognate with Scots hevy, havy, heavy (“heavy”), Dutch hevig (“violent, severe, intense, acute”), Middle Low German hēvich (“violent, fierce, intense”), German hebig (compare heftig (“fierce, severe, intense, violent, heavy”)), Icelandic höfugur (“heavy, weighty, important”), Latin capāx (“large, wide, roomy, spacious, capacious, capable, apt”).

adj

1. (of a physical object) Having great weight.
2. (of a topic) Serious, somber.
3. Not easy to bear; burdensome; oppressive.
   heavy yokes, expenses, undertakings, trials, news, etc.
   Sent hither by my Husband to impart the heavy news. 1814, William Wordsworth, The Excursion
4. (Britain, slang, dated) Good.
   This film is heavy.
5. (dated, late 1960s, 1970s, US) Profound.
   The Moody Blues are, like, heavy.
6. (of a rate of flow) High, great.
   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
7. (slang) Armed.
   Come heavy, or not at all.
8. (of music) Loud, distorted, or intense.
   Metal is heavier than rock.
9. (of weather) Hot and humid.
10. (of a person) Doing the specified activity more intensely than most other people.
    He was a heavy sleeper, a heavy eater and a heavy smoker – certainly not an ideal husband.
11. (of the eyes) With eyelids difficult to keep open due to tiredness.
    Watch for the signs of fatigue, including yawning, blinking and heavy eyes. Dec 2021, The Road Ahead, Brisbane, page 11, column 3
12. (of food) High in fat or protein; difficult to digest.
    Cheese-stuffed sausage is too heavy to eat before exercising.
13. Of great force, power, or intensity; deep or intense.
    [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. 2013-07-20, “Out of the gloom”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845
    it was a heavy storm; a heavy slumber in bed; a heavy punch
14. Laden to a great extent.
    his eyes were heavy with sleep; she was heavy with child
15. Laden with that which is weighty; encumbered; burdened; bowed down, either with an actual burden, or with grief, pain, disappointment, etc.
    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
16. Slow; sluggish; inactive; or lifeless, dull, inanimate, stupid.
    a heavy gait, looks, manners, style, etc.
    a heavy writer or book
17. Impeding motion; cloggy; clayey.
    a heavy road; a heavy soil
18. Not raised or leavened.
    heavy bread
19. (of wines or spirits) Having much body or strength.
20. (obsolete) With child; pregnant.
21. (physics) Containing one or more isotopes that are heavier than the normal one.
22. (petroleum) Having high viscosity.
23. (finance) Of a market: in which the price of shares is declining.
    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
24. (nautical, military) Heavily-armed.
25. (aviation, of an aircraft) Having a relatively high takeoff weight and payload,
    1. especially, having a maximum takeoff weight exceeding 300,000 tons, as almost all widebodies do, generating high wake turbulence.
       In a firm voice he said, “ World Wide Six heavy is ready for takeoff. ” 1990, Perry Francis Lafferty, The Downing of Flight Six Heavy, page 85

adv

1. In a heavy manner; weightily; heavily; gravely.
   heavy laden with their sins
2. (colloquial, nonstandard) To a great degree; greatly.
   Olive: What was it - booze? Barney: Yeh. Been hitting it pretty heavy. 1957, Ray Lawler, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, Sydney: Fontana Books, published 1974, page 35
3. (India, colloquial) very

noun

1. (slang) A villain or bad guy; the one responsible for evil or aggressive acts.
   With his wrinkled, uneven face, the actor always seemed to play the heavy in films.
2. (slang) A doorman, bouncer or bodyguard.
   A fight started outside the bar but the heavies came out and stopped it.
3. (journalism, slang, chiefly in the plural) A newspaper of the quality press.
   The comment may be offered here that the 'heavies' have been the Design Award's principal scorers, both in the overall bronze plaque days and, since, in the Daily/Sunday Class 1. 1973, Allen Hutt, The changing newspaper, page 151
   Reviewers in the heavies aim to impress with the depth of their knowledge and appreciation. 2006, Richard Keeble, The Newspapers Handbook
4. (aviation) A relatively large multi-engined aircraft.
   I read five heavies, maybe transports or tankers...could be bombers. 2000, Philip Woods, Shattered Allegiance, page 363
   A 76 Squadron pilot who later completed a second tour on Mosquitoes said that his colleagues on the light bombers “simply could never understand how awful being on heavies was.” 2012, Jon E. Lewis, The Mammoth Book of Heroes

verb

1. (often with "up") To make heavier.
   They piled their goods on the donkey's back, heavying up an already backbreaking load.
2. To sadden.
3. (Australia, New Zealand, informal) To use power or wealth to exert influence on, e.g., governments or corporations; to pressure.
   The union was well known for the methods it used to heavy many businesses.
   […]the Prime Minister sought to evade the simple fact that he heavied Mr Reid to get rid of Dr Armstrong. 1985, Australian House of Representatives, House of Representatives Weekly Hansard, Issue 11, Part 1, page 1570
   2001, Finola Moorhead, Darkness More Visible, Spinifex Press, Australia, page 557, But he is on the wrong horse, heavying me. My phone′s tapped. Well, he won′t find anything.
   2005, David Clune, Ken Turner (editors), The Premiers of New South Wales, 1856-2005, Volume 3: 1901-2005, page 421, But the next two days of the Conference also produced some very visible lobbying for the succession and apparent heavying of contenders like Brereton, Anderson and Mulock - much of it caught on television.

Etymology 2

heave + -y

adj

1. Having the heaves.
   a heavy horse