weight

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A measure of the heaviness of an object.
• noun The force with which a body is attracted to Earth or another celestial body, equal to the product of the object's mass and the acceleration of gravity.
• noun A unit measure of gravitational force.
• noun A system of such measures.
• noun An object used principally to exert a force by virtue of its gravitational attraction to Earth, especially.
• noun A metallic solid used as a standard of comparison in weighing.
• noun An object used to hold something else down.
• noun A counterbalance in a machine.
• noun Sports A heavy object, such as a dumbbell, lifted for exercise or in athletic competition.
• noun Excessive fat; corpulence.
• noun Statistics A factor assigned to a number in a computation, as in determining an average, to increase or decrease the number's effect on the computation, reflecting its importance.
• noun Oppressiveness; pressure.
• noun The greater part; preponderance.
• noun Influence, importance, or authority: synonym: importance.
• noun Ponderous quality.
• noun Sports A classification according to comparative lightness or heaviness. Often used in combination.
• noun The heaviness or thickness of a fabric in relation to a particular season or use. Often used in combination.
• noun A measure of the relative thickness of yarn.
• transitive verb To make heavy or heavier.
• transitive verb To cause to feel concerned, sad, or preoccupied; burden or oppress.
• transitive verb To increase the weight or body of (fabrics) by treating with chemicals.
• transitive verb Statistics To assign weights or a weight to.
• transitive verb To cause to have a slant or bias.
• transitive verb Sports To assign to (a horse) the weight it must carry as a handicap in a race.
• idiom (by weight) According to weight rather than volume or other measure.
• idiom Sports (make weight) To weigh within the limits stipulated for an athletic contest.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun See wecht.
• noun Downward force of a body; gravity; heaviness; ponderousness; more exactly, the resultant of the force of the earth's gravitation and of the centrifugal pressure from its axis of rotation, considered as a property of the body affected by it.
• noun Mass; relative quantity of matter.
• noun A heavy mass; specifically, something used on account of its weight or its mass.
• noun Specifically, a body of determinate mass, intended to be used on a balance or scale for measuring the weight or mass of the body in the other pan or part of the scale (as the platform in a platform-scale).
• noun A system of units for expressing thy weight or mass of bodies.
• noun Pressure; burden; care; responsibility.
• noun In coal-mining, subsidence of the roof due to pressure from above, which takes effect as the coal is worked away.
• noun Importance; specifically, the importance of a fact as evidence tending to establish a conclusion; efficacy; power of influencing the conduct of persons and the course of events; effective influence in general.
• noun In medicine, a sensation of oppression or heaviness over the whole body or over a part of it, as the head or stomach.
• noun In mathematics: The number of roots of x appertaining to any given function or functions of x, which must be employed to express a quantity composed of the product of the coefficients.
• noun With respect to any selected variable in a system of homogeneous functions, the sum of the weights in respect to such variable of the several coefficients of which the quantity is composed (the weight of each several coefficient meaning the index of the power of the selected variable in that term of the given function or functions which is affected with such coefficient).
• noun In archery, the strength of a bow measured in pounds by the pull or weight necessary to fully draw the bow.
• To add or attach a weight or weights to; load with additional weight; add to the heaviness of.
• In dyeing, to load (the threads) with minerals or other foreign matters mixed with the dyes, for the purpose of making the fabrics appear thick and heavy.
• In founding, to bind (the parts of a flask) together by means of weights placed on the top, in order to prevent the bursting of the flask under the pressure of the liquid metal.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun The quality of being heavy; that property of bodies by which they tend toward the center of the earth; the effect of gravitative force, especially when expressed in certain units or standards, as pounds, grams, etc.
• noun The quantity of heaviness; comparative tendency to the center of the earth; the quantity of matter as estimated by the balance, or expressed numerically with reference to some standard unit.
• noun Hence, pressure; burden.
• noun Importance; power; influence; efficacy; consequence; moment; impressiveness.
• noun A scale, or graduated standard, of heaviness; a mode of estimating weight