carry weight
English
[edit]Verb
[edit]carry weight (third-person singular simple present carries weight, present participle carrying weight, simple past and past participle carried weight)
- To be handicapped by an extra burden, as when one rides or runs.
- To have influence.
- Your excuses don't carry weight with me.
- Our motion did not carry much weight with the judge.
- 1948, Rollo H. Myers, Erik Satie, D. Dobson, page 31:
- When M. Paladilhe was elected my friends said to me: 'Never mind; later on he'll vote for you, Maestro, and his support will carry a lot of weight'. I never had his vote, nor his support, nor his weight.
- 2002, Elizabeth Moynihan, Destiny's Whisper, Writers Club Press, page 376:
- Manning Senior carries a lot of weight around here, he has a lot of friends; a lot of professional clout and can obviously get things done just barely within the lines of legality.
- 2010, Gordon Ryan, American Voices: State of Rebellion,, page 247:
- A recommendation from him carries a lot of weight around here.
- 2026 July 6, Jonathan Cohen, “Violet Grohl Finds Her Own Frequency”, in SPIN[1], archived from the original on 8 July 2026:
- What began as something loose and exploratory, from a budding musician who’s been writing songs since early adolescence, suddenly carried weight.
- 2026 July 10, Meghna Deshraj, “Being Found Is No Longer The Goal. Being Chosen Is”, in Forbes[2], archived from the original on 11 July 2026:
- The reflex to flood a site with hundreds of pages is the wrong one, and in any field where accuracy carries weight, a single wrong claim does more damage than a hundred extra pages repair.
Related terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]to have influence
|
Further reading
[edit]- “carry weight”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
- “carry weight”, in Merriam-Webster Online, Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, Inc., 1996–present.
- “carry weight” (US) / “carry weight” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.