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. [1913 Webster] Note:
Weight differs from gravity in being the effect of gravity, or the
downward pressure of a body under the influence of gravity; hence,
it constitutes a measure of the force of gravity, and being the
resultant of all the forces exerted by gravity upon the different
particles of the body, it is proportional to the quantity of matter
in the body. [1913 Webster]
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; as, a mass of stone having the weight of five
hundred pounds. [1913 Webster] For sorrow, like a heavy-hanging
bell, Once set on ringing, with his own weight goes. --Shak. [1913
Webster]
Hence, pressure; burden; as, the weight of care
or business. "The weight of this said time." --Shak. [1913 Webster]
For the public all this weight he bears. --Milton. [1913 Webster]
[He] who singly bore the world's sad weight. --Keble. [1913
Webster]
Importance; power; influence; efficacy;
consequence; moment; impressiveness; as, a consideration of vast
weight. [1913 Webster] In such a point of weight, so near mine
honor. --Shak. [1913 Webster]
A scale, or graduated standard, of heaviness; a
mode of estimating weight; as, avoirdupois weight; troy weight;
apothecaries' weight. [1913 Webster]
A ponderous mass; something heavy; as, a clock
weight; a paper weight. [1913 Webster] A man leapeth better with
weights in his hands. --Bacon. [1913 Webster]
A definite mass of iron, lead, brass, or other
metal, to be used for ascertaining the weight of other bodies; as,
an ounce weight. [1913 Webster]
(Mech.) The resistance against which a machine
acts, as opposed to the power which moves it. [Obs.] [1913 Webster]
Atomic
weight. (Chem.) See under Atomic, and cf. Element. Dead weight,
Feather
weight, Heavy
weight, Light
weight, etc. See under Dead, Feather, etc. Weight
of observation (Astron. & Physics), a number expressing the
most probable relative value of each observation in determining the
result of a series of observations of the same kind. [1913 Webster]
Syn: Ponderousness; gravity; heaviness; pressure; burden; load;
importance; power; influence; efficacy; consequence; moment;
impressiveness. [1913 Webster]
To load with a weight or weights; to load down;
to make heavy; to attach weights to; as, to weight a horse or a
jockey at a race; to weight a whip handle. [1913 Webster] The
arrows of satire, . . . weighted with sense. --Coleridge. [1913
Webster]
(Astron. & Physics) To assign a weight to; to
express by a number the probable accuracy of, as an observation.
See Weight
of observations, under Weight. [1913 Webster]
(Dyeing) To load (fabrics) as with barite, to
increase the weight, etc. [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
(Math.) to assign a numerical value expressing
relative importance to (a measurement), to be multiplied by the
value of the measurement in determining averages or other aggregate
quantities; as, they weighted part one of the test twice as heavily
as part
[PJC] [1913 Webster]
Word Net
weightNoun
1 the vertical force exerted by a mass as a
result of gravity
2 sports equipment used in calisthenic exercises
and weightlifting; a weight that is not attached to anything and is
raised and lowered by use of the hands and arms [syn: free weight,
exercising
weight]
3 the relative importance granted to something;
"his opinion carries great weight"
4 an artifact that is heavy
5 an oppressive feeling of heavy force; "bowed
down by the weight of responsibility"
6 a system of units used to express the weight of
something [syn: system of
weights]
7 a unit used to measure weight; "he placed two
weights in the scale pan" [syn: weight
unit]
8 (statistics) a coefficient assigned to elements
of a frequency distribution in order to represent their relative
importance [syn: weighting]
Verb
2 present with a bias; "He biased his
presentation so as to please the share holders" [syn: slant, angle]
Moby Thesaurus
Indian club, accent, affliction, amperage, armipotence, ascendancy, authoritativeness, authority, balance, ballast, barbell, be heavy, beef, bitter cup, bitter draft, bitter draught, bitter pill, black power, bob, brim, brute force, buckram, burden, burden of care, burden with, burthen, cankerworm of care, carat, care, cargo, carry weight, centigram, ceremonial, ceremoniousness, ceremony, charge, charisma, charm, chock, clout, cogence, cogency, compulsion, concern, concernment, congest, consequence, consequentiality, consideration, contaminate, control, corrupt, counterbalance, cram, credit, cross, crowd, crown of thorns, cumber, cumbrance, curse, deadweight, debase, decagram, decigram, demand, difficulty, dignity, dint, disadvantage, distress, doctor, dominance, domination, dram, dram avoirdupois, drive, dumbbell, duress, duty, dyne, effect, effectiveness, effectuality, efficacy, embarrassment, eminence, emphasis, enchantment, encumber, encumbrance, energy, enjoin, esteem, exact, excellence, exerciser, extrinsicality, fasten upon, favor, fill, fill to overflowing, fill up, flower power, force, force majeure, forcefulness, form, formality, formalization, foul up, freight, freight with, full blast, full force, gall, gall and wormwood, good feeling, grain, gram, gravity, greatness, grievance, hamper, handicap, have weight, heft, high order, high rank, hold, hold the scales, horse, hundredweight, impediment, impedimenta, impersonality, import, importance, impose, impose on, impose upon, imposition, incidental power, inconvenience, inflict on, inflict upon, infliction, influence, influentiality, influentialness, insinuation, interest, jam, jam-pack, justness, kilo, kilogram, lade, lay, lay on, lead, leadership, leverage, levy, lie heavy, load, long horse, lumber, magnetism, magnitude, main force, main strength, mana, mark, mass, mastery, materiality, megaton, merit, might, might and main, mightiness, milligram, millstone, mole, moment, momentousness, moxie, muscle power, note, onus, oppression, ounce, ounce avoirdupois, ounce troy, overfill, pack, pack of troubles, pad, parallel bars, paramountcy, peck of troubles, penalty, pennyweight, personality, persuasion, pith, pizzazz, place, plumb, plummet, pomp, pomposity, poop, potence, potency, potentiality, pound, pound avoirdupois, pound troy, poundal, power, power pack, power structure, power struggle, powerfulness, precedence, predominance, preeminence, preponderance, prepotency, pressure, prestige, primacy, primness, priority, productiveness, productivity, prominence, puissance, pull, punch, punching bag, purchase, push, put, put down, put on, put upon, ram in, rank, reign, repute, rigidness, rings, ritual, rituality, rowing machine, rule, saddle, saddle with, sandbag, satiate, saturate, say, scruple, sea of troubles, self-importance, seniority, set, side horse, significance, signification, sinew, sinker, slug, solemnity, solidity, sophisticate, sorrow, soundness, spoil, starchiness, stature, steam, stiffness, stiltedness, stone, strength, stress, strike a balance, strong arm, stuff, stylization, suasion, subject to, substantiality, subtle influence, suggestion, supercharge, superiority, superpower, supremacy, surfeit, sway, task, tax, thorn, tip the scales, ton, top off, trampoline, trapeze, trouble, units of weight, upper hand, validity, value, vehemence, vigor, vim, virility, virtue, virulence, vitality, wad, waters of bitterness, wattage, weigh, weigh down, weigh heavy, weigh in, weigh out, weight down, weight down with, weightiness, whip hand, white elephant, woe, worth, yoke withEnglish
Etymology
wiht, ġewihtPronunciation
- /weɪt/
- Rhymes: -eɪt
Homophones
Noun
- The force on an object due to the gravitational attraction between it and the Earth.
- An object used to make something heavier.
- A standardized block of metal used in a balance to measure the mass of another object.
- : A disc of iron, dumbbell, or barbell used for training the muscles.
- Mass (net weight, atomic weight, molecular weight, troy weight, carat weight, etc.).
- A variable which multiplies a value for ease of statistical manipulation.
- The smallest cardinality of a base.
- The boldness of a font; the relative thickness of its strokes.
- Compare to mass.
Translations
force due to gravity
- Chinese (Simplified): 重量 (zhòng liàng)
- Dutch: gewicht
- Ewe: kpekpeme
- Finnish: paino
- French: poids
- German: Gewicht
- Italian: peso
- Japanese: 重さ (omosa), 重量 (jūryō) general; 体重 (taijū) animals incl. person
- Portuguese: gravidade
- Romanian: greutate
- Russian: вес (v'es)
- Swedish: tyngd , vikt
- Telugu: భారము (bhaaramu)
- Ukrainian: вага (waha)
object to make something heavier
measuring weights
sport device
physics: mass
statistics: statistical value
Related terms
Verb
Translations
add weight
- French: alourdir
- German: beschweren
- Swedish: göra tyngre
oppress
- Swedish: tynga
to bias, to slant
to handicap a horse
Weight and mass
In modern scientific usage, weight and mass are
fundamentally different quantities: mass is an intrinsic property
of matter, whereas weight
is a force that results from the action of gravity on matter: it measures
how strongly gravity pulls on that matter.
However, the recognition of this difference is,
historically, a relatively recent development and in many everyday
situations the word "weight" continues to be used when "mass" is
meant. For example, we say that an object "weighs one kilogram",
even though the kilogram is a unit of mass.
The distinction between mass and weight is
unimportant for many practical purposes because the strength of
gravity is very simliar everywhere on the surface of the Earth. In
such a constant gravitational field, the gravitational force
exerted on an object (its weight) is
directly proportional to its mass. So, if object A weighs, say,
10 times as much as object B, then object A's mass is 10 times that
of object B. This means that an object's mass can be measured
indirectly by its weight (for conversion formulas see
below). For example, when we buy a bag of sugar we can measure
its weight (how hard it presses down on the scales) and be sure
that this will give a good indication of the quantity that we are
actually interested in, which is the mass of sugar in the bag.
Nevertheless, slight variations in the Earth's gravitational field
do exist (see Earth's
gravity). These alter the relationship between weight and mass,
and must be taken into account in high precision weight
measurements that are intended to indirectly measure mass.
The use of "weight" for "mass" also persists in
some scientific terminology – for example, in the chemical terms "atomic
weight", "molecular weight", and "formula weight", rather than the
preferred "atomic mass"
etc.
The difference between mass and force becomes
obvious when:
- objects are compared in different gravitational fields, such as away from the Earth's surface. For example, on the surface of the Moon, gravity is only about one-sixth as strong as on the surface of the Earth. A one-kilogram mass is still a one-kilogram mass (as mass is an intrinsic property of the object) but the downward force due to gravity is only one-sixth of what the object would experience on Earth.
- masses are considered in the context of a lever, such as a cantilever structure or a weighing balance.
- locating the center of gravity of an object (although if the gravitation field is uniform, the center of gravity will coincide with the center of mass).
- an object is submersed in a fluid (for instance, a brick weighs less when placed in water, and helium balloon in the atmosphere appears to have negative weight).
Units of weight
Systems of units of weight (force) and mass have
a tangled history, partly because the distinction was not properly
understood when many of the units first came into use.
SI units
In most modern scientific work, physical quantities are measured in SI units. The SI unit of mass (and hence weight in some everyday senses) is the kilogram. The SI unit of force (and hence weight in the mechanics sense) is the newton (N) – which can also be expressed in SI base units as kg·m/s² (kilograms times metres per second squared).The gravitational force exerted on an object is
proportional to the mass of the object, so it is reasonable to
think of the strength of gravity as measured in terms of force per
unit mass, that is, newtons per kilogram (N/kg). However, the unit
N/kg resolves to m/s²; (metres per second per second), which is the
SI unit of acceleration, and in practice gravitational strength is
usually quoted as an acceleration.
The pound and other non-SI units
In
United States customary units, the pound can be either a unit
of force or a unit of mass. Related units used in some distinct,
separate subsystems of units include the poundal and the slug. The
poundal is defined as the force necessary to accelerate a one-pound
object at 1 ft/s², and is equivalent to about 1/32 of a
pound (force). The slug is defined as the amount of mass that
accelerates at 1 ft/s² when a pound of force is exerted on
it, and is equivalent to about 32 pounds (mass).
The kilogram-force
is a non-SI unit of force, defined as the force exerted by a
one-kilogram mass in standard Earth gravity (equal to 9.80665
newtons exactly). The dyne
is the cgs
unit of force and is not a part of SI, while weights measured in
the cgs unit of mass, the gram, remain a part of SI.
Conversion between weight (force) and mass
To convert between weight (force) and mass we use Newton's second law, F = ma (force = mass × acceleration). Here, F is the force (weight) due to gravity, m is the mass of the object in question, and a is the acceleration due to gravity, on Earth approximately 9.8 m/s² or 32.2 ft/s². In this context the same equation is often written as W = mg, with W standing for weight, and g for the acceleration due to gravity.Sensation of weight
see also apparent weight The weight force that we actually sense is not the downward force of gravity, but the normal force (an upward contact force) exerted by the surface we stand on, which opposes gravity and prevents us falling to the center of the Earth. This normal force, called the apparent weight, is the one that is measured by a spring scale.For a body supported in a stationary position,
the normal force balances the earth's gravitational force, and so
apparent weight has the same magnitude as actual weight.
(Technically, things are slightly more complicated. For example, an
object immersed in water weighs less, according to a spring scale,
than the same object in air; this is due to buoyancy, which opposes the
weight force and therefore generates a smaller normal. These and
other factors are explained further under apparent weight.)
If there is no contact with any surface to
provide such an opposing force then there is no sensation of weight
(no apparent weight). This happens in free-fall, as
experienced by sky-divers (until they approach terminal
velocity) and astronauts in orbit, who feel "weightless" even though their
bodies are still subject to the force of gravity: they're just no
longer resisting it. The experience of having no apparent weight is
also known as microgravity.
A degree of reduction of apparent weight occurs,
for example, in elevators. In an elevator, a spring scale will
register a decrease in a person's (apparent) weight as the elevator
starts to accelerate downwards. This is because the opposing force
of the elevator's floor decreases as it accelerates away underneath
one's feet.
Measuring weight
- Main article: Weighing scale
Weight is commonly measured using one of two
methods. A
spring scale or
hydraulic or pneumatic scale measures weight force (strictly
apparent
weight force) directly. If the intention is to measure mass
rather than weight, then this force must be converted to mass. As
explained above, this calculation depends on the strength of
gravity. Household and other low precision scales that are
calibrated in units of mass (such as kilograms) assume roughly that
standard
gravity will apply. However, although nearly constant, the
apparent or actual strength of gravity does in fact vary very
slightly in different places on the earth (see standard
gravity, physical
geodesy, gravity
anomaly and gravity). This means that same
object (the same mass) will exert a slightly different weight force
in different places. High precision spring scales intended to
measure mass must therefore be calibrated specifically according
their location on earth.
Mass may also be measured with a balance,
which compares the item in question to others of known mass. This
comparison remains valid whatever the local strength of gravity. If
weight force, rather than mass, is required, then this can be
calculated by multiplying mass by the acceleration due to gravity –
either standard gravity (for everyday work) or the precise local
gravity (for precision work).
Gross weight is a term that generally is found in
commerce or trade applications, and refers to the gross or total
weight of a product and its packaging. Conversely, net weight
refers to the intrinsic weight of the product itself, discounting
the weight of packaging or other materials.
Relative weights on the Earth, other planets and the Moon
The table below shows comparative gravitational accelerations at the surface of the Sun, the Earth's moon, each of the planets in the solar system, and Pluto. The “surface” is taken to mean the cloud tops of the gas giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune). For the Sun, the surface is taken to mean the photosphere. The values in the table have not been de-rated for the centrifugal effect of planet rotation (and cloud-top wind speeds for the gas giants) and therefore, generally speaking, are similar to the actual gravity that would be experienced near the poles.References
See also
weight in Afrikaans: Gewig
weight in Arabic: وزن
weight in Asturian: Pesu
weight in Bengali: ওজন (ভার)
weight in Min Nan: Tāng-liōng
weight in Belarusian: Вага
weight in Bosnian: Težina
weight in Bulgarian: Тегло
weight in Catalan: Pes
weight in Czech: Váha
weight in Danish: Vægt (fysik)
weight in German: Gewicht
weight in Estonian: Kaal
weight in Spanish: Peso
weight in Esperanto: Pezo
weight in Basque: Pisu
weight in Persian: وزن
weight in French: Poids
weight in Galician: Peso
weight in Hindi: भार
weight in Korean: 무게
weight in Croatian: Težina
weight in Ido: Pezo
weight in Indonesian: Berat
weight in Icelandic: Þyngd
weight in Italian: Forza peso
weight in Hebrew: משקל (פיזיקה)
weight in Latvian: Svars
weight in Lithuanian: Svoris
weight in Hungarian: Súly
weight in Macedonian: Тежина
weight in Malayalam: ഭാരം
weight in Malay (macrolanguage): Berat
weight in Dutch: Gewicht
weight in Japanese: 重さ
weight in Norwegian: Tyngde
weight in Polish: Ciężar
weight in Portuguese: Peso
weight in Kölsch: Jeweech
weight in Romanian: Greutate
weight in Quechua: Llasaq kay
weight in Russian: Вес
weight in Sicilian: Pisu
weight in Simple English: Weight
weight in Slovak: Gravitačná hmotnosť
weight in Slovenian: Teža
weight in Serbian: Тежина
weight in Finnish: Paino
weight in Swedish: Tyngd
weight in Thai: น้ำหนัก
weight in Vietnamese: Lực hấp
dẫn#Tr.E1.BB.8Dng_l.E1.BB.B1c
weight in Turkish: Ağırlık
weight in Ukrainian: Вага
weight in Yiddish: וואג
weight in Chinese:
重量