Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Having great weight.
- adjective Slow and labored because of great bulk or weight.
- adjective Difficult to maneuver or control because of great bulk or weight.
- adjective Slow or difficult to manage, especially because of complexity.
- adjective Dull and lacking grace or fluency: synonym: heavy.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Having weight; weighty; heavy; especially, very heavy; hence, clumsy or unwieldy by reason of weight: used both literally and figuratively.
- Weighty; important; momentous.
- Disposed to ponder; thinking; thoughtful.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Very heavy; weighty
- adjective Important; momentous; forcible.
- adjective Heavy; dull; wanting; lightless or spirit
- adjective (Min.) heavy spar, or barytes. See
Barite .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective
Heavy ,massive ,weighty . - adjective figuratively, by extension
Serious ,onerous ,oppressive . - adjective
Clumsy ,unwieldy , orslow , especially due toweight . - adjective
Dull ,boring ,tedious ;long-winded in expression. - adjective rare Characterized by or associated with
pondering . - adjective obsolete
Dense .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective having great mass and weight and unwieldiness
- adjective labored and dull
- adjective slow and laborious because of weight
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Their thirty and forty - thousand-ton battleships slowed down half a dozen miles offshore and maneuvered in ponderous evolutions, while tiny scout-boats (lean, six-funneled destroyers) ran in, cutting blackly the flashing sea like so many sharks.
Goliah 2010
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Their thirty - and forty-thousand-ton battleships slowed down half a dozen miles off-shore and manœuvred in ponderous evolutions; while tiny scout-boats (lean, six-funnelled destroyers) ran in, cutting blackly the flashing sea like so many sharks.
Goliah 1910
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Their thirty - and forty-thousand-ton battleships slowed down half a dozen miles off-shore and manœuvred in ponderous evolutions; while tiny scout-boats (lean, six-funnelled destroyers) ran in, cutting blackly the flashing sea like so many sharks.
Goliah 1910
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– The days of chivalry are no more: the knight no longer sallies forth in ponderous armour, mounted upon a steed as invulnerable as himself.
Letters for Literary Ladies: To Which is Added, An Essay on the Noble Science of Self-Justification 1798
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"I surely hope the slave is within it," called the ponderous fellow to the audience, "as I do wish to recover her!"
Magicians of Gor Norman, John, 1931- 1988
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He apparently took keen pleasure in holding up to ridicule and in satirising, what he was pleased to call his ponderous pedantries, his solemn affectation of profundity and wisdom, his narrow-mindedness, and his intolerable and transparent egotism.
A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
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His speech was slow and his manner might almost be called ponderous, but the advisers who whispered over his shoulder, during the course of the debate, attested the rapidity with which his mind operates and his skill in catching the points suggested.
Woodrow Wilson and the World War A Chronicle of Our Own Times. Charles Seymour 1924
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Vargas by name, having broken his sword in battle, tore from an oak a ponderous bough or branch, and with it did such things that day, and pounded so many Moors, that he got the surname of Machuca, and he and his descendants from that day forth were called Vargas y Machuca.
Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 1581
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Vargas by name, having broken his sword in battle, tore from an oak a ponderous bough or branch, and with it did such things that day, and pounded so many Moors, that he got the surname of Machuca, and he and his descendants from that day forth were called Vargas y Machuca.
The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Complete Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 1581
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They're all very slow and ponderous, which is odd as everyone says its an upbeat happy album.
Word Magazine - 2009
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