weighted

adjective

weight·ed | \ ˈwā-təd

Definition of weighted

1 : made heavy : loaded weighted silk

2a : having a statistical weight attached a weighted test score

b : compiled or calculated from weighted data a weighted mean

3 : inclined sense 1

Examples of weighted in a Sentence

The head of the golf club was weighted.

Recent Examples on the Web

The problem is that the average member is unlikely to be possessed of such high motives, which means that Congress represents not the national interest but some weighted average of all the local constituencies within the chamber. — Jay Cost, National Review, "Congress Should Fix Itself before Reclaiming Its Power," 14 June 2019 Mack received 39% of the weighted vote and 67% of the 51 selectors’ first-place ballots. — Chicago Tribune Staff, chicagotribune.com, "Khalil Mack receives Butkus Award — yes, they give them to pro players too — from Dick Butkus," 4 June 2019 After summing the weighted inputs and adding in the bias, the neuron then applies a non-linear activation function. — Timothy B. Lee, Ars Technica, "How computers got shockingly good at recognizing images," 18 Dec. 2018 The electricity sector is weighted toward operating costs (the power plants are mostly already built), while the transportation sector is weighted toward capital costs, i.e., the cost of buying the vehicle. — David Roberts, Vox, "The 5 most important questions about carbon taxes, answered," 20 July 2018 Puro Down weighted blankets are embedded with glass beads sewn in small compartments, which then results in the blanket pushing your body downwards. — Popular Mechanics, "These Weighted Blankets Can Alleviate Stress and Anxiety," 23 Mar. 2019 The best part: Good weighted blankets cost around $200, but Layla's starts at just $129. — Lexie Sachs, Good Housekeeping, "Layla's New Weighted Blanket Is Blissfully Cozy, and a Steal at $129," 22 Mar. 2019 The lottery has been around since 1985, was tweaked to a weighted system in 1990 and will be changing again next year in an effort to discourage teams from tanking. — Tim Reynolds, Houston Chronicle, "Suns land No. 1 overall pick in NBA draft," 16 May 2018 Podojil has a weighted 4.06 GPA and is verbally committed to play at Arkansas, along with younger sister, Ellie. — Scott Springer, Cincinnati.com, "Indian Hill's Anna Podojil named Ohio Gatorade Girls Soccer Player of the Year," 21 June 2018

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

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Last Updated

18 Jun 2019

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The first known use of weighted was in 1597

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More Definitions for weighted

weighted

adjective

Financial Definition of weighted

What It Is

Weighted refers to the mathematical practice of adjusting the components of an index to reflect the importance of certain characteristics.

How It Works

Here is information about five stocks.

If we wanted to create an unweighted index of the price performance of these five companies, we might average their stock prices and call it a day (i.e., we would calculate the average as $8.60).

However, this unweighted average doesn’t take into account the issuers’ actual sizes or the number of shares outstanding (in other words, without reflecting the issuers’ true heft in the economy). The tiny companies can sway the index as much as the more significant companies. Accordingly, if one of the higher-priced stocks (Company D, in our example) has a huge price increase, the index is more likely to increase even if the other, more meaningful companies in the index decline in value at the same time.

Thus, we could create a weighted index to give more weight to the bigger issuers. We could do this by multiplying the share price by the shares outstanding, summing the totals, and then dividing by the total shares outstanding:

Why It Matters

In the finance world, some indexes are weighted and some are not. It is important to understand how indexes are weighted so that you can understand what influences those indexes, what the index really conveys, and whether the index is relevant to your investment objectives.

Source: Investing Answers

weighted

adjective