heft

C2+ Topic:General Vocabulary

US /hɛft/ UK /hɛft/ See IPA manual

Meanings

1

noun
weight or heaviness; to lift or test the weight of something

He felt the satisfying heft of the axe in his hands.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · weight or heaviness; to... weight heaviness bulk ballast mass lift

Opposites

lightness

Word family

Derived forms heftyheftedhefting

Related forms heave

Etymology

A noun and verb of the fifteenth century, probably from heave (Old English hebban 'to lift'), formed on the analogy of words like weft from weave or theft from thieve.

hebban Old English

View etymology graph ->

Topics

General Vocabulary

External links

# heft

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** noun
**IPA (US):** /hɛft/
**IPA (UK):** /hɛft/

## Meanings
1. weight or heaviness; to lift or test the weight of something

## Examples
- He felt the satisfying heft of the axe in his hands.

## Synonyms
- weight
- heaviness
- bulk
- ballast
- mass
- lift

## Antonyms
- lightness

## Derived Forms
- hefty
- hefted
- hefting

## Related Forms
- heave

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: hebban

## Etymology
A noun and verb of the fifteenth century, probably from heave (Old English hebban 'to lift'), formed on the analogy of words like weft from weave or theft from thieve.

## AI Etymology
heft has the recorded history: A noun and verb of the fifteenth century, probably from heave (Old English hebban 'to lift'), formed on the analogy of words like weft from weave or theft from thieve. The history explains the modern form through the named earlier word or formation, without requiring a separate speculative ancestry. The etymology remains cautious where the history is cautious: comparisons, echoic formation, or disputed derivation do not make the ancestry more definite than the forms actually named. In present English, the noun sense is "weight or heaviness; to lift or test the weight of something", so the historical development ends in a clearly identifiable modern dictionary use. The same base also appears in related forms such as heave, and in derivatives such as hefty, hefted, and hefting. Its semantic neighborhood includes weight, heaviness, bulk, and ballast, which helps locate the modern sense without adding a separate etymological claim. The named historical forms include Old English hebban.

## Topics
- General Vocabulary

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