different between thickset vs ponderous

English

Etymology

thick +? set

Alternative forms

• thick-set

Adjective

thickset (comparative more thickset, superlative most thickset)

1. Having a relatively short, heavy build.

   Synonyms: big-boned, stocky, stout

   Antonyms: sleek, slender, slim, svelte, willowy

   • 1654, Samuel Clarke, The Marrow of Ecclesiastical History, London: T.V., “The Life of Theodore Beza,” p. 885,^[2]

     He was a thick set man, and of a strong Constitution […]

   • 1748, Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Roderick Random, London: J. Osborn, Volume 1, Chapter 8, p. 52,^[3]

     […] he directed me to a small chink in the board partition, through which I could see a thick set brawny fellow, with a fierce countenance,

   • 1872, George Eliot, Middlemarch, Book 4, Chapter 41,^[4]

     The contrast was as striking as it could have been eighteen years before, when Rigg was a most unengaging kickable boy, and Raffles was the rather thick-set Adonis of bar-rooms and back-parlors.

   • 1926, Nalbro Bartley, Her Mother’s Daughter, New York: George H. Doran, Chapter 1,^[5]

     More than ever Min hated her own thickset, healthy body, her round, red face with its small gray eyes, the mop of auburn hair which Aunt Julie braided so tightly […]

   • 1970, Saul Bellow, Mr. Sammler’s Planet, Penguin, 1977, Chapter 6, p. 279,^[6]

     Things edible would always be respected by a man who had nearly starved to death. The laborers, too, in white smocks, broad and heavy, a thickset personnel, butchers’ men.

2. Densely crowded together; made up of things that are densely crowded together; closely planted.

   Synonyms: dense, thick

   Antonyms: sparse, thin

   • 1581, Thomas Newton (translator), Thebais in Seneca His Tenne Tragedies, London: Thomas Marsh, Act 2, p. 48,^[7]

     […] let me be allowde

     To lurke behinde this Craggy Rocke, or els my selfe to hyde

     On backside of some thickset hedge:

   • 1612, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion, London: M. Lownes et al., Song 1, p. 11,^[8]

     […] Corineus ran

     With slaughter through the thick-set squadrons of the foes;

   • 1635, John Taylor, The olde, old, very olde man: or the age and long life of Thomas Par, London: Henry Gosson,^[9]

     […] though his Beard not oft corrected,

     Yet neare it growes, not like a Beard neglected

     From head to heele, his body hath all over,

     A Quick-set, Thick-set nat’rall hairy cover.

   • 1696, Jane Leade, A Fountain of Gardens, London, “Solomon’s Porch: or the Beautiful Gate of Wisdom’s Temple,”^[10]

     The beauteous Love-Eye burning in the Heart;

     From whence Loves Centres endless multiply,

     As thick-set Spangles of the Sky,

     Raising a Sting of Joy in ev’ry Part.

   • 1700, John Dryden (translator), “Meleager and Atalanta, Out of the Eighth Book of Ovid’s Metamorphosis” in Fables Ancient and Modern, London: Jacob Tonson, p. 106,^[11]

     His [the boar’s] Neck shoots up a thick-set thorny Wood;

     His bristled Back a Trench impal’d appears,

     And stands erected, like a Field of Spears.

   • 1862, Christina Rossetti, “A Birthday” in Goblin Market and Other Poems, London: Macmillan, p. 56,^[12]

     My heart is like an appletree

     Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;

   • 1950, Mervyn Peake, Gormenghast, London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, Chapter 77,

     It was for the arc of lanterned boats to close in and to form the thickset audience, armed and impenetrable.

3. Densely covered (with something).
   • 1583, John Foxe, Acts and Monuments, London: John Day, Book 4, “The tragicall historie of Gregorie the vij. otherwise named Hildebrand,” p. 177,^[13]

     […] in a vessell being thick set with sharpe nayles, he tormented him to the poynt of death:

   • 1660, Nathaniel Ingelo, Bentivolio and Urania, London: Richard Marriot, Book 3, p. 134,^[14]

     The sides of the Church were so thick set with Pictures, that it seem’d to be made in imitation of Plato’s Den, where one could see nothing but shadowes.

   • 1908, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, Chapter 4,^[15]

     A huge cherry-tree grew outside, so close that its boughs tapped against the house, and it was so thick-set with blossoms that hardly a leaf was to be seen.

   • 1929, Carl Grabo, The Cat in Grand-Father’s House, Chicago: Laidlaw Brothers, Chapter 7, p. 99,^[16]

     […] he came to the house of the King of the Gnomes, which was inside a mountain and as thickset with jewels as the grass with dew on a fine morning.

Synonyms

• (stout, fat): See also Thesaurus:obese

Translations

Noun

thickset (countable and uncountable, plural thicksets)

1. (countable, obsolete) A thick hedge.
   • 1858, Edward Bulwer-Lytton (as Pisistratus Caxton), What Will He Do with It? Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, Volume 4, Book 11, Chapter 7, p. 294,^[17]

     Had Darrell been placed amidst the circumstances that make happy the homes of earnest men, Darrell would have been mirthful; had Waife been placed amongst the circumstances that concentrate talent, and hedge round life with trained thicksets and belting laurels, Waife would have been grave.

2. (uncountable, historical) A stout, twilled cotton cloth; a fustian corduroy, or velveteen.
   • 1812, George Crabbe, Tales, London: J. Hatchard, Tale 4, “Procrastination,” p. 73,^[18]

     When he, with thickset coat of Badge-man’s blue,

     Moves near her shaded silk of changeful hue;

   • 1829, anonymous contributor, “A Day at Fontainebleau.—The Royal Hunt,” The Monthly Magazine, New Series, Volume 7, No. 37, January 1829, p. 12,^[19]

     His breeches were of the homeliest thickset;

3. (countable, historical) A piece of clothing made from this fabric.
   • 1785, John Trusler, Modern Times: or the Adventures of Gabriel Outcast, London: for the author, Volume 2, Chapter 17, p. 27,^[20]

     […] his coat was originally what is called a thickset, but out at the elbows;

   • 1819, Walter Scott, The Bride of Lammermoor, Chapter 1,^[21]

     I had observed that our landlord wore, on that memorable morning, a pair of bran new velveteens instead of his ancient thicksets.

References

Anagrams

• sticketh, thickest, thickets

English

Etymology

Ultimately from Latin ponder?sus (“weighty”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?p?n.d??.?s/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?p?n.d?.?s/

Adjective

ponderous (comparative more ponderous, superlative most ponderous)

1. Heavy, massive, weighty.
   • 1879, Julian Hawthorne, Archibald Malmaison, ch. 5:

     [H]e saw, at the end of a shallow embrasure, a ponderous door of dark wood, braced with iron.

   • c. 1920, Edgar B. P. Darlington, The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings, ch. 4:

     The great elephant, when the cage was being placed, would, at a signal from its keeper, place its ponderous head against one side of the cage and push.

2. (figuratively, by extension) Serious, onerous, oppressive.
   • 1781, Samuel Johnson, Lives of the Poets, "Dryden":

     It was Dryden's opinion . . . that the drama required an alternation of comick and tragick scenes; and that it is necessary to mitigate, by alleviations of merriment, the pressure of ponderous events, and the fatigue of toilsome passions.

   • 1845, Charles Dickens, Pictures From Italy, ch. 11:

     In its court-yard—worthy of the Castle of Otranto in its ponderous gloom—is a massive staircase.

   • 1915, Virginia Woolf, The Voyage Out, ch. 19:

     For the time, her own body was the source of all the life in the world, which tried to burst forth here—there—and was repressed now by Mr. Bax, now by Evelyn, now by the imposition of ponderous stupidity.

3. Clumsy, unwieldy, or slow, especially due to weight.
   • 1915, Samuel Hopkins Adams, Little Miss Grouch, ch. 10:

     Slowly, through an increasing glow that lighted land and water alike, the leviathan of the deep made her ponderous progress to the hill-encircled harbor.

   • 1919, Virginia Woolf, "Kew Gardens":

     Following his steps . . . came two elderly women of the lower middle class, one stout and ponderous, the other rosy cheeked and nimble.

4. Dull, boring, tedious; long-winded in expression.
   • 1863, Elizabeth Gaskell, "Cousin Phillis":

     Over supper the minister did unbend a little into one or two ponderous jokes.

   • 1918, Gene Stratton-Porter, A Daughter Of The Land, ch. 2:

     [A]s certainly as any one said anything in her presence that she had occasion to repeat, she changed the wording to six-syllabled mouthfuls, delivered with ponderous circumlocution.

5. (rare) Characterized by or associated with pondering.
   • c. 1660, Thomas Manton, "Sermon Upon John III" in Works of Thomas Manton (2002 edition), ?ISBN, p. 464:

     Ponderous thoughts take hold of the heart; musing maketh the fire to burn, and steady sight hath the greatest influence upon us.

   • 1804, The Literary Magazine and American Register, vol. 2, no. 7, p. 10:

     The acute and ponderous mind of Dr. Johnson was not always right in its decisions.

   • 1850, Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country, vol. 41, p. 242:

     They are the pleasantest of all companions, and perhaps the most affluent in correct opinions of men and things generally, although little addicted to ponderous consideration or deep research.

6. (obsolete) Dense.

Synonyms

• (heavy, massive): heavy, massive
• (serious, onerous): oppressive, serious

Derived terms

• ponderously
• ponderousness

Translations

Anagrams

• neuropods