weigh

Etymology

From Old English wegan, from Proto-Germanic *weganą, from Proto-Indo-European *weǵʰ-. Cognate with Scots wey or weich, Dutch wegen, German wiegen, wägen, Danish veje, Norwegian Bokmål veie, Norwegian Nynorsk vega.

Pronunciation

• enPR: wā, IPA^(key): /weɪ/

• Audio (US)

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Rhymes: -eɪ

• Homophones: way, wey, whey (in accents with the wine-whine merger)

Verb

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.

   You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.

4. (intransitive, figuratively, obsolete) To judge; to estimate.
   • Spenser

     could not weigh of worthiness aright

5. (transitive) To consider a subject. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
6. (transitive) To have a certain weight.

   I weigh ten and a half stone.

7. (intransitive) To have weight; to be heavy; to press down.
   • Cowper

     They only weigh the heavier.

   • Shakespeare

     Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff / Which weighs upon the heart.

8. (intransitive) To be considered as important; to have weight in the intellectual balance.
   • Shakespeare

     Your vows to her and me […] will even weigh.

   • John Locke

     This objection ought to weigh with those whose reading is designed for much talk and little knowledge.

9. (transitive, nautical) To raise an anchor free of the seabed.
10. (intransitive, nautical) To weigh anchor.
    • 1624, John Smith, Generall Historie, in Kupperman 1988, p. 91:

      Towards the evening we wayed, and approaching the shoare [...], we landed where there lay a many of baskets and much bloud, but saw not a Salvage.

    • 1841, Edgar Allan Poe, ‘A Descent into the Maelström’:

      ‘Here we used to remain until nearly time for slack-water again, when we weighed and made for home.’

11. To bear up; to raise; to lift into the air; to swing up.
    • Cowper

      Weigh the vessel up.

12. (obsolete) To consider as worthy of notice; to regard.
    • Shakespeare

      I weigh not you.

    • Spenser

      all that she so dear did weigh