heft
/hɛft
/verb [with object and adverbial]
1Lift or carry (something heavy): he lifted crates and hefted boxes...
- I walked back into my room and hefted a dark, heavy object.
- Theo came back out with a twelve-foot square tent in an incredibly heavy box and hefted it between them into the car.
- It had a layer of hardened leather stretched over back of it and in the center the shield was hollowed out allowing for a shoulder to fit in snugly when it was needed for ramming purposes or became too heavy to heft aloft with one arm.
Synonyms
lift, lift up, raise, raise up, heave, hoist, haul, manhandle;
carry, cart, lug, tote
informal hump, yank
rare upheave
1.1Lift or hold (something) in order to test its weight: Anne hefted the gun in her hand...
- He hefted the club, testing its weight and balance.
- David picked it up, felt the weight of it, hefted it, tossed it up and down.
- The boy had picked up the stranger's dropped guns and he hefted them curiously before he handed them back.
noun [mass noun] North American
1The weight of someone or something: he was buckle-kneed from the heft of his staggering load...
- This gave engineers the option of either creating a stiffer frame without adding heft or shedding weight without sacrificing strength.
- Every ounce of weight and heft removed from a woman's duty rig means she is that much more comfortable.
- It begins with their size and weight, their heft, and the way it feels in your hands.
1.1Ability or influence: they lacked the political heft to get the formulation banned...
- Brazil and Mexico have enough demographic and economic heft to exert real influence in international affairs.
- He combines a passion for communities, working people and social justice with intellectual heft.
- So the reactionary viewpoint has a lot of intellectual heft these days, but it doesn't have much political heft.
Origin
Late Middle English (as a noun): probably from heave, on the pattern of words such as cleft and weft.