Heavily

//ˈhɛvɪli// adv

adv ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Adverb
  1. 1
    With a great weight.

    "heavily burdened"

  2. 2
    To a considerable degree, to a great extent.

    "He relied heavily on the data collected by the others."

  3. 3
    In a manner designed for heavy duty.

    "heavily armed soldiers; heavily armoured tanks; heavily reinforced walls"

  4. 4
    So as to be thick or heavy.

    "heavily built young men; his heavily muscled arms"

  5. 5
    In a laboured manner.

    "he breathed heavily"

Adverb
  1. 1
    to a considerable degree wordnet
  2. 2
    indulging excessively wordnet
  3. 3
    in a labored manner wordnet
  4. 4
    slowly as if burdened by much weight wordnet
  5. 5
    in a manner designed for heavy duty wordnet
Show 2 more definitions
  1. 6
    in a heavy-footed manner wordnet
  2. 7
    with great force wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
apatheticallyaridlybarrenlybleaklybloodlesslyburdensomely

Example

More examples

"The future of our company is at stake. We have been heavily in the red for the last couple of years."

Etymology

From Middle English hevely, hevyliche, from Old English hefiġlīċe (“heavily; grievously”), equivalent to heavy + -ly.

Related phrases

time hangs heavily

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.