different between heavy vs stiff

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English hevy, hevi?, from Old English hefi?, hefe?, hæfi? (“heavy; important, grave, severe, serious; oppressive, grievous; slow, dull”), from Proto-West Germanic *hab?g (“heavy, hefty, weighty”), from Proto-Germanic *hab?gaz (“heavy, hefty, weighty”), from Proto-Indo-European *keh?p- (“to take, grasp, hold”), equivalent to heave +? -y.

Pronunciation

• enPR: hev?i
• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /?h?.vi/
• (General Australian, General New Zealand) IPA^(key): /?he.vi/
• Rhymes: -?vi

Adjective

heavy (comparative heavier, superlative heaviest)

1. (of a physical object) Having great weight.
2. (of a topic) Serious, somber.
3. Not easy to bear; burdensome; oppressive.

   • The hand of the Lord was heavy upon them of Ashdod.

   • 1814, William Wordsworth, The Excursion

     Sent hither by my Husband to impart the heavy news.

4. (Britain, slang, dated) Good.

5. (dated, late 1960s, 1970s, US) Profound.

6. (of a rate of flow) High, great.
   • 1998, Stanley George Clayton, ""Menstruation" in Encyclopedia Britannica

     The ovarian response to gonadotropic hormones may be erratic at first, so that irregular or heavy bleeding sometimes occurs

7. (slang) Armed.

8. (music) Louder, more distorted.

9. (of weather) Hot and humid.
10. (of a person) Doing the specified activity more intensely than most other people.

11. (of food) High in fat or protein; difficult to digest.

12. Of great force, power, or intensity; deep or intense.
    • 1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Land That Time Forgot Chapter IV

      The surf was not heavy, and there was no undertow, so we made shore easily, effecting an equally easy landing.

13. Laden to a great extent.

14. Laden with that which is weighty; encumbered; burdened; bowed down, either with an actual burden, or with grief, pain, disappointment, etc.
    • 1613, William Browne, Britannia's Pastorals

      Seating himselfe within a darkesome cave, / (Such places heavy Saturnists doe crave,) / Where yet the gladsome day was never seene […]

15. Slow; sluggish; inactive; or lifeless, dull, inanimate, stupid.
    • a heavy, dull, degenerate mind

    • Neither [is] his ear heavy, that it cannot hear.

16. Impeding motion; cloggy; clayey.

    a heavy road; a heavy soil

17. Not raised or leavened.

18. (of wines or spirits) Having much body or strength.
19. (obsolete) With child; pregnant.
20. (physics) Containing one or more isotopes that are heavier than the normal one.
21. (petroleum) Having high viscosity.

Synonyms

• sweer/swear

Antonyms

• light

Derived terms

Pages starting with “heavy”.

Related terms

• heave
• heft

Translations

Adverb

heavy (comparative more heavy, superlative most heavy)

1. In a heavy manner; weightily; heavily; gravely.

   heavy laden with their sins

2. (colloquial, nonstandard) To a great degree; greatly.
3. (India, colloquial) very

Derived terms

• hang heavy
• heavy-laden

Noun

heavy (plural heavies or heavys)

1. A villain or bad guy; the one responsible for evil or aggressive acts.

   With his wrinkled, uneven face, the actor always seemed to play the heavy in films.

2. (slang) A doorman, bouncer or bodyguard.

   A fight started outside the bar but the heavies came out and stopped it.

3. (journalism, slang, chiefly in the plural) A newspaper of the quality press.
   • 1973, Allen Hutt, The changing newspaper (page 151)

     The comment may be offered here that the 'heavies' have been the Design Award's principal scorers, both in the overall bronze plaque days and, since, in the Daily/Sunday Class 1.

   • 2006, Richard Keeble, The Newspapers Handbook

     Reviewers in the heavies aim to impress with the depth of their knowledge and appreciation.

4. (Should we move, merge or split⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) (aviation) A large multi-engined aircraft. (The term heavy normally follows the call-sign when used by air traffic controllers.)

Derived terms

• brain heavy
• dog heavy

Translations

Verb

heavy (third-person singular simple present heavies, present participle heavying, simple past and past participle heavied)

1. (often with "up") To make heavier. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
2. To sadden. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
3. (Australia, New Zealand, informal) To use power or wealth to exert influence on, e.g., governments or corporations; to pressure.

   The union was well known for the methods it used to heavy many businesses.

   • 1985, Australian House of Representatives, House of Representatives Weekly Hansard, Issue 11, Part 1, page 1570,

     […] the Prime Minister sought to evade the simple fact that he heavied Mr Reid to get rid of Dr Armstrong.

   • 2001, Finola Moorhead, Darkness More Visible, Spinifex Press, Australia, page 557,

     But he is on the wrong horse, heavying me. My phone?s tapped. Well, he won?t find anything.

   • 2005, David Clune, Ken Turner (editors), The Premiers of New South Wales, 1856-2005, Volume 3: 1901-2005, page 421,

     But the next two days of the Conference also produced some very visible lobbying for the succession and apparent heavying of contenders like Brereton, Anderson and Mulock - much of it caught on television.

Etymology 2

heave +? -y

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?hi?vi/

Adjective

heavy (comparative more heavy, superlative most heavy)

1. Having the heaves.

   a heavy horse

See also

• heavy cake

References

• heavy at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• Havey, Yahve

German

Etymology

From English heavy.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?h?vi/

Adjective

heavy (not comparable)

1. (predicative, colloquial, probably slightly dated) heavy; intense; serious; shocking (extraordinary, especially in a bad way)

   Synonyms: heftig, krass, nicht ohne, ein starkes Stück

Spanish

Etymology

From English heavy (metal).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?xebi/, [?xe.??i]

Adjective

heavy (plural heavys)

1. heavy (pertaining to heavy metal)
2. heavy (intense)

English

Etymology

From Middle English stiff, stiffe, stif, from Old English st?f, from Proto-Germanic *st?faz (compare West Frisian stiif,Dutch stijf, Norwegian Bokmål stiv, German steif), from Proto-Indo-European *steypós (compare Latin st?pes, st?p?, from which English stevedore).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /st?f/
• Rhymes: -?f

Adjective

stiff (comparative stiffer, superlative stiffest)

1. (of an object) Rigid; hard to bend; inflexible.

   • “A tight little craft,” was Austin’s invariable comment on the matron; […]. ¶ Near her wandered her husband, orientally bland, invariably affable, and from time to time squinting sideways, as usual, in the ever-renewed expectation that he might catch a glimpse of his stiff, retroussé moustache.

2. (figuratively, of policies and rules and their application and enforcement) Inflexible; rigid.
3. (of a person) Formal in behavior; unrelaxed.
4. (colloquial) Harsh, severe.
5. (of muscles or parts of the body) Painful as a result of excessive or unaccustomed exercise.

6. Potent.

7. Dead, deceased.
8. (of a penis) Erect.
9. (cooking, of whipping cream or egg whites) Beaten until so aerated that they stand up straight on their own.

   beat the egg whites until they are stiff

10. (mathematics) Of an equation: for which certain numerical solving methods are numerically unstable, unless the step size is taken to be extremely small.
11. (nautical) Keeping upright.

Quotations

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:stiff.

Derived terms

• bored stiff, scared stiff
• stiff-lipped, stiff upper lip
• stiffy

Translations

Noun

stiff (countable and uncountable, plural stiffs)

1. (slang) An average person, usually male, of no particular distinction, skill, or education, often a working stiff or lucky stiff.

   A Working Stiff's Manifesto: A Memoir of Thirty Jobs I Quit, Nine That Fired Me, and Three I Can't Remember was published in 2003.

2. (slang) A person who is deceived, as a mark or pigeon in a swindle.

   She convinced the stiff to go to her hotel room, where her henchman was waiting to rob him.

3. (slang) A cadaver; a dead person.
4. (slang) A flop; a commercial failure.
   • 1994, Andy Dougan, The actors' director: Richard Attenborough behind the camera (page 63)

     If the movie was a stiff it wasn't any of their specific faults. They were all in it together and they were jobbed in and jobbed out for two weeks and gone and they got a pile of money for their efforts.

   • 2016, Ralph J. Gleason, Toby Gleason, Music in the Air: The Selected Writings of Ralph J. Gleason

     They never did sell any records. I don't mean they didn't sell 100,000. I mean they didn't sell 5000. Total. National. Coast-to-coast. The record was a stiff.

5. (US, slang) A person who leaves (especially a restaurant) without paying the bill.
6. (US, slang, by extension) A customer who does not leave a tip.
7. (blackjack) Any hard hand where it is possible to exceed 21 by drawing an additional card.
8. (finance, slang) Negotiable instruments, possibly forged.
9. (prison slang) A note or letter surreptitiously sent by an inmate.

References

• (prison slang: a note or letter): 2015, Eric Partridge, A Dictionary of the Underworld: British and American (page 688); 2015, Noel 'Razor' Smith, The Criminal Alphabet: An A-Z of Prison Slang

See also

• bindlestiff
• See also Thesaurus:corpse, Thesaurus:body

Translations

Derived terms

• do a bit of stiff
• working stiff

Verb

stiff (third-person singular simple present stiffs, present participle stiffing, simple past and past participle stiffed)

1. To fail to pay that which one owes (implicitly or explicitly) to another, especially by departing hastily.

   Realizing he had forgotten his wallet, he stiffed the taxi driver when the cab stopped for a red light.

   • 1946, William Foote Whyte, Industry and Society, page 129

     We asked one girl to explain how she felt when she was "stiffed." She said, You think of all the work you've done and how you've tried to please [them…].

2. to cheat someone
   • 1992, Stephen Birmingham, Shades of Fortune, page 451

     You see, poor Nonie really was stiffed by Adolph in his will. He really stiffed her, Rose, and I really wanted to right that wrong.

3. to tip ungenerously
   • 2007, Mary Higgins Clark, I Heard That Song Before, page 154

     Then he stiffed the waiter with a cheap tip.

Translations

Anagrams

• TIFFs, tiffs

Middle English

Adjective

stiff

1. Alternative form of stif

Adverb

stiff

1. Alternative form of stif