weight
/weɪt/noun, verb
weight is spelled W-E-I-G-H-T. The wrong spelling people search most is wieght: about 140 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 83 of all searches for the word. Weight is a noun meaning “The downwards force an object experiences due to gravity”. The plural of weight is weights.
How many letters and syllables are in weight?
| Letters | 6: W-E-I-G-H-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 105 times per million words; the 1,021st most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 2; the most searched, wieght, about 140 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell weight?
Weight is spelled W-E-I-G-H-T. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 78 of the searches for weight in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is weight?
Weight appears 105 times per million words in written English, the 1,021st most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce weight?
- /weɪt/
Weight has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Naomi_Persephone_Amethyst_(NaomiAmethyst)-weight.wav, En-us-weight.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-weight.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with weight
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: wait (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
Forms of weight
- weights plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- wt.
- weighting participle, present
- weighted participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does weight mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The downwards force an object experiences due to gravity.
- 2
An object used to make something heavier.
- 3
A standardized block of metal used in a balance to measure the mass of another object.
- 4
Importance or influence.
Another knight came to settle on the island, a man of much weight and position, on whom the Adelantados of all the island relied, and who was made a magistrate.
- 5
An object, such as a weight plate or barbell, used for strength training.
He's working out with weights. Weight-bearing exercise is now understood to be just as important as cardio.
- 6
Ellipsis of free weight, as contrasted with the weights inside an exercise machine.
I prefer weights over machines.
- 7
Viscosity rating.
- 8
Mass (atomic weight, molecular weight, etc.) (in restricted circumstances).
verb
- 1
To add weight to something; to make something heavier.
- 2
To load (fabrics) with barite, etc. to increase the weight.
- 3
To load, burden or oppress someone.
- 4
To assign weights to individual statistics.
- 5
To bias something; to slant.
The criteria governing the choice of candidate were heavily weighted in his favor.
- 6
To handicap a horse with a specified weight.
- 7
To give a certain amount of force to a throw, kick, hit, etc.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate weight?
Wiktionary records one abbreviation of weight: wt..
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Weight in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | poids , lest , graisse , alourdir, lester, appesantir |
| German | Gewicht , beschweren, gewichten |
| Portuguese | peso , haltere , ponderar |
| Spanish | peso, pesadez, pesadumbre, pesantez (monosemic), pesadura, pesor (monosemic) |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does weight come from?
From Middle English weight, weiȝte, weght, wight, from Old English wiht, ġewiht (“weight”), from Proto-Germanic *wihtiz ("weight"; compare *weganą (“to move”)), from Proto-Indo-European *weǵʰ- (“to move; pull; draw; drive”). Equivalent to weigh + -t (abstract nominal suffix).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).