ponderous

adjective pon·der·ous \ ˈpän-d(ə-)rəs \

|Updated on: 7 Jul 2018

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Examples: ponderous in a Sentence

Editor's Note: The Serious History of ponderous

Definition of ponderous

1 : of very great weight

2 : unwieldy or clumsy because of weight and size

3 : oppressively or unpleasantly dull : lifeless

ponderous prose

—

ponderously

adverb

—

ponderousness

noun

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Examples of ponderous in a Sentence

students struggling to stay awake during a ponderous lecture
fell asleep during the ponderous speech

Recent Examples of ponderous from the Web

The ponderous choice to cleave the overstuffed Scorpion into Sides A and B results in two uneven suites of songs.

— andy hutchins, Time, "Scorpion Finds Drake Struggling to Keep It All Together," 29 June 2018
Things turned ponderous right from the opener, when North Carolina and Oregon State played the longest nine-inning game, by time, in the tournament’s 72-year history — 4:24.

— pat borzi, New York Times, "Pace of Play Problems Plague College Baseball, Too," 25 June 2018
In perhaps a nod to that request, Cuba’s official press was largely devoid of ponderous coverage reflecting on the Castro family ceding power, and focused instead on the technical aspects of the transition.

— anthony faiola, Washington Post, "In Cuba’s National Assembly, Raúl Castro marks last hours of his family’s rule," 18 Apr. 2018
With the ponderous weight of expectation likely in the back of her mind, the less-is-more approach is a smart one, as evidenced by the latest glance behind the curtain Cobain posted late Tuesday night (June 12).

— gil kaufman, Billboard, "Frances Bean Cobain Posts Clip of Intense New Song: Listen," 13 June 2018
First implication: Anything serious has to be ponderous.

— Vogue, "Portrait of a Reporter as a Young Man: Tom Wolfe in Vogue, April 1966," 15 May 2018
Over the next few weeks, these larvae will shape-shift into ponderous insects, whose males have a can opener for a forehead and a name previously owned by a Roman demigod.

— jason bittel, National Geographic, "Watch a Sausage-Size Insect Transform From Larva to Beetle," 11 May 2018
Los Colchoneros had looked ponderous throughout the first 45 minutes and Diego Simeone decided to make an immediate change at half-time, as Ángel Correa was hauled off for Fernando Torres.

— SI.com, "Real Sociedad 3-0 Atletico Madrid: Excellent Adnan Januzaj Inspires Impressive Hosts to Deserved Win," 19 Apr. 2018
In perhaps a nod to that policy,Cuba's official press was largely devoid on Wednesday of ponderous coverage of the Castro family's ceding power.

— the washington post, NOLA.com, "Miguel Diaz-Canel poised to take reins of Cuba after 60 years of Castro rule," 19 Apr. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'ponderous.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

The Serious History of ponderous

Ponderous is ultimately from the Latin word for "weight," namely, "pondus" (which also gave us "ponder" and "preponderance" and is related to "pound"). We adopted "ponderous" with the literal sense "heavy" from Anglo-French ponderus in the 15th century, and early on we appended a figurative sense of "weighty," that is, "serious" or "important." But we stopped using the "serious" sense of "ponderous" around 200 years ago - perhaps because in the meantime we'd imposed on it a different figurative sense of "dull and lifeless," which we still use today.

Origin and Etymology of ponderous

Middle English, from Anglo-French ponderus, from Latin ponderosus, from ponder-, pondus weight

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: 15th century

in the meaning defined at sense 1

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ponderous Synonyms

Synonym Discussion of ponderous

heavy, weighty, ponderous, cumbrous, cumbersome mean having great weight. heavy implies that something has greater density or thickness than the average of its kind or class.