ponderous

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

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

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ponderously

adverb

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ponderousness

noun

See ponderous defined for English-language learners

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ponderous was our Word of the Day on 07/05/2010. Hear the podcast!

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

In many key pages of the composer's Symphony No. 5, Trevino favored tempos ranging from slow to downright ponderous.

— zachary lewis, cleveland.com, "Cleveland Orchestra makes nourishing meal out of goodies by Tchaikovsky at Blossom (review)," 7 Aug. 2017
Miraculously, these five explore grief without getting ponderous or even, actually, depressing.

— john timpane, Philly.com, "'Rabbit Hole' by Theater with a View: Connecting, or not, through suffering," 20 July 2017
Predictably, the longer and heavier TourX wagon feels a bit more ponderous than the Regal Sportback.

— joseph capparella, Car and Driver, "All Hatch All the Time: We Drive Buick’s 2018 Regal Sportback, TourX, and GS," 19 July 2017
Too many early mornings and late nights, too much bread and wine, too many ponderous political allegories—in the films and in real life, all the Croisette’s opulence alarmingly guarded by policemen carrying machine guns.

— vanityfair.com, VanityFair.com, "Sofia Coppola’s," 24 May 2017
Sense8 Is Auteur Television That’s Actually Fun—David Sims argues that Season 2 of the indulgent Netflix series stands out amid all the dark, ponderous dramas.

— the editors, The Atlantic, "The Atlantic's Week in Culture," 5 May 2017
And though some of the existing Netflix shows about these heroes have been dark and ponderous, the four seem to be having a lot more fun in this more light-hearted trailer.

— kelly lawler, USA TODAY, "'Marvel's The Defenders' gets the snarky, punchy trailer it deserves," 3 May 2017
Korvette resists the ponderous sincerity that often comes with putting away childish things.

— dan piepenbring, The New Yorker, "A Punk Band That Knows “The Bar Is Low” for Straight White Men," 8 Apr. 2017
Although less ponderous than most of Webber’s works, the score is dizzyingly busy at times, and the small orchestra under the direction of Sierra Dee does a fine job navigating it.

— sam hurwitt, The Mercury News, "Review: Jesus gets groovy in ‘Superstar’ in Livermore," 19 Jan. 2017

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

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First Known Use: 15th century

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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.

- a heavy child for his age

weighty suggests having actual and not just relative weight.

- a load of weighty boxes

ponderous implies having great weight because of size and massiveness with resulting great inertia.

- ponderous elephants in a circus parade

cumbrous and cumbersome imply heaviness and bulkiness that make for difficulty in grasping, moving, carrying, or manipulating.

- wrestled with the cumbrous furniture
- early cameras were cumbersome and inconvenient

PONDEROUS Defined for English Language Learners

ponderous

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adjective

Definition of ponderous for English Language Learners

: very boring or dull
: slow or awkward because of weight and size

PONDEROUS Defined for Kids

ponderous

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adjective pon·der·ous \ ˈpän-də-rəs \

Definition of ponderous for Students

1 :very heavy

a ponderous stone

2 :slow or clumsy because of weight and size

The elephant moved with ponderous steps.

3 :unpleasantly dull

a ponderous speech

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ponderously

adverb

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ponderous was our Word of the Day on 07/05/2010. Hear the podcast!

Examples of ponderous in a Sentence

Recent Examples of ponderous from the Web

The Serious History of ponderous

Origin and Etymology of ponderous

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