ponderous

adjective

pon·der·ous ˈpän-d(ə-)rəs

: of very great weight

: unwieldy or clumsy because of weight and size

: oppressively or unpleasantly dull : lifeless

ponderous prose

ponderously adverb

ponderousness noun

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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.

Choose the Right Synonym for 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

Example Sentences

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

Recent Examples on the Web Allan Nevins won a Pulitzer Prize for his ponderous but definitive 1932 biography of Cleveland.

Steve Donoghue, The Christian Science Monitor, 9 Nov. 2022 But as Cornelia’s hushed, ponderous voiceover at the start of the first episode makes clear, Blick is also after something more substantial: an epic morality tale in which fate, history, and love will intertwine.

Tim Grierson, Chron, 7 Nov. 2022 So much of Arizona is shaped by geological forces that are ponderous and complicated.

Roger Naylor, The Arizona Republic, 3 Nov. 2022 Democrats, predictably, gave the Biden package a ponderous name: the Inflation Reduction Act.

Michael Sokolove, The New Republic, 15 Sep. 2022 America’s ponderous strategic silence on fast-moving and dangerous strategic innovations only encourages rivals.

Craig Hooper, Forbes, 3 Aug. 2022 One more auspicious meeting comes on Megadeth’s The Sick, the Dying… and the Dead!, an album that’s arrived with a load of headache-inducing media squabbles to match its somewhat ponderous title.

Hank Shteamer, SPIN, 27 Sep. 2022 The dialogue can sound stiff in this tale of warring clans and courageous loyalty; scenes of mourning can feel ponderous.

Celia Wren, Washington Post, 15 Sep. 2022 The ponderous recitation of textual obscurities; the litany of unintelligible names; the holy tone—is this a TV show or a religious exercise?

WSJ, 1 Sep. 2022 See More

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.