Heft

/hɛft/ noun, verb, slang

noun, verb, slang ·Common ·Middle school level

Meaning at a glance

  • Primary sense: The feel of the weight of something; heaviness.
  • Grammar: heft is listed as noun, verb, slang.
  • Nearest alternatives: avoirdupois, balance, be heavy, beef.
  • Useful contrasts: drop, insignificance, lightness.
  • Usage evidence: The heft of the titanium cube was unmatched.

How to use "heft"

  1. Start with the primary definition, then check the part of speech before placing the word in a sentence.
  2. Compare nearby synonyms to make sure "heft" carries the exact meaning, tone, and strength you need.
  3. Use the example sentence as a context check. If your sentence uses the word differently, confirm that the grammar still fits.

Meaning check

  • Does the word fit the sentence's grammar?
  • Does it match the intended tone rather than only the dictionary definition?
  • Would a simpler synonym be clearer for the reader?
  • Is there enough surrounding context to prevent ambiguity?

Source and review context

This entry combines structured lexical data with WordToolSet review checks. Definitions, examples, synonyms, and usage notes may come from different source tables, so the page is designed to show evidence from more than one angle before you rely on "heft" in a final draft.

If a word has several senses, prefer the sense that matches your sentence's grammar and surrounding context. A correct definition can still be the wrong choice when the sentence needs a different register, emphasis, or level of specificity.

Before you rely on this definition

Read the first definition as a starting point, then check the example, synonyms, and part of speech before treating "heft" as the right word for your sentence.

If your draft is formal, technical, persuasive, or sensitive, compare "heft" with a nearby alternative so the final choice matches both meaning and reader expectation.

Compare nearby meanings

  • Use synonyms when you need a softer, stronger, simpler, or more specific word.
  • Use antonyms to check the boundary of the meaning and avoid accidental contrast.
  • Use the example sentence to confirm the word behaves naturally in context.
  • Keep the original wording when a replacement adds complexity without improving precision.

Definition decision workflow

1. Identify the role

Check whether "heft" is acting as noun, verb, slang in your sentence. A definition is only useful when the grammar matches the way the word is being used.

2. Test the nearest option

Compare it with "avoirdupois" and other nearby choices to see whether the sentence needs a softer, stronger, or more familiar word.

3. Confirm with context

Use the example sentence below as an evidence check, then read your own sentence out loud to catch tone or rhythm problems.

Review note: Definition pages are checked for source coverage, sentence evidence, synonym support, and editorial insight before they are treated as approval-ready pages. If the evidence is too thin, the page remains available to users but is kept out of the approval-facing indexed inventory.

Final meaning check

Before publishing a sentence with "heft", ask whether the word helps the reader understand the idea faster. A precise word should reduce confusion, not simply make the sentence look more polished.

When the definition, synonym evidence, and example context point in the same direction, the word is usually a safer choice. When they conflict, revise the sentence or choose a clearer alternative.

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The feel of the weight of something; heaviness. countable, uncountable

    "A high quality hammer should have good balance and heft."

  2. 2
    A piece of pastureland which farm animals (chiefly cattle or sheep) have become accustomed to. Northern-England, Scotland, UK, US, dialectal, informal

    "[S]he came to fetch her [bairn] out of ill haft and waur guiding."

  3. 3
    A number of sheets of paper fastened together, as to form a book or a notebook. Northern-England, Scotland, UK, US, dialectal, informal
  4. 4
    the property of being large in mass wordnet
  5. 5
    The force exerted by an object due to gravitation; weight. US, countable, dialectal, uncountable

    "The man had been carried out of the yard while the fire was still burning; […] Public opinion was much divided, some holding that it would go hard with a man of his age and heft; but the common belief seemed to be that he was of that sort "as'd take a deal o'killin'," and that he would be none the worse for such a fall as that."

Show 7 more definitions
  1. 6
    A flock or group of farm animals (chiefly cattle or sheep) which have become accustomed to a particular piece of pastureland. Northern-England, Scotland, UK, US, dialectal, informal
  2. 7
    A part of a serial publication; a fascicle, an issue, a number. Northern-England, Scotland, UK, US, dialectal, informal

    "Such an organ is now to be published by the house of J[oseph] Ricker, in Giessen, Ephemeris für Semitische Epigraphik, edited by Dr. Mark Lidzbarki.^([sic]) […] The size of the "hefts" will depend on the material requiring attention, and the annual volume is to cost about 15 marks."

  3. 8
    Graveness, seriousness; gravity. countable, figuratively, uncountable

    "He's got a good voice, and reads well; but come to a sermon—wal, ain't no gret heft in't."

  4. 9
    Importance, influence; weight. countable, figuratively, uncountable

    "Put more baldly, the reason why Republicans and British Conservatives started giving each other copies of Atlas Shrugged in the 80s was that [Ayn] Rand seemed to grant intellectual heft to the prevailing ethos of the time."

  5. 10
    The greater part of something; the bulk, the mass. US, countable, dated, informal, uncountable

    "The turkey's nest was islanded with a fragrant swath,—the "heft" of the crop noted and rejoiced over,—[…]"

  6. 11
    An act of lifting; a lift. UK, countable, dialectal, uncountable

    "Deigning no answer, the sturdy parson seized the bigger of the two ash staves, and laying the butt of the other for a fulcrum, gave the stuck wheel such a powerful heft, that the whole cart rattled, and the crates began to dance."

  7. 12
    An act of heaving (lifting with difficulty); an instance of violent exertion or straining. countable, obsolete, uncountable

    "[I]f one preſent / Th'abhor'd Ingredient [a spider in a drink] to his eye, make knovvne / Hovv he hath drunke, he cracks his gorge, his ſides / VVith violent Hefts: I haue drunke, and ſeene the Spider."

Verb
  1. 1
    To lift or lift up (something, especially a heavy object). UK, US, dialectal, informal, transitive

    "He hefted the sack of concrete into the truck."

  2. 2
    simple past and past participle of heave UK, US, dialectal, form-of, informal, obsolete, participle, past
  3. 3
    To accustom (a flock or group of farm animals, chiefly cattle or sheep) to a piece of pastureland. Northern-England, Scotland, UK, US, dialectal, informal, transitive

    "For I had been "hefting" (as the business is called in our Galloway land) a double score of lambs which had just been brought from a neighbouring lowland farm to summer upon our scanty upland pastures. Now it is the nature of sheep to return if they can to their mother-hill, or, at least, to stray farther and farther off, seeking some well-known landmark. So, till such new-comers grow satisfied and "heft" (or attach) themselves to the soil, they must be watched carefully both night and day."

  4. 4
    To cause (milk) to be held in a cow's udder until the latter becomes hard and swollen, either by not milking the cow or by stopping up the teats, to make the cow look healthy; also, to cause (a cow) to have an udder in this condition. Northern-England, Scotland, UK, US, dialectal, informal

    "You also see the impropriety of hefting or holding the milk in cows until the udder is distended much beyond its ordinary size, for the sake of shewing its utmost capacity for holding milk, a device which all cow-dealers, and indeed every one who has a cow for sale in a market, scrupulously uses. […] [E]very farmer is surely aware, or ought to be aware, that the person who purchases a hefted cow on account of the magnitude of its udder exhibited in the market, gains nothing by the device; because, when the cow comes into his possession, she will never be hefted, and, of course, never shew the greatest magnitude of udder, and never, of course, confer the benefit for which she was bought in preference to others with udders in a more natural state. If, then, purchasers derive no benefit from hefting, because they do not allow hefting, why do they encourage so cruel and afterwards injurious practice in dealers?"

  5. 5
    lift or elevate wordnet
Show 8 more definitions
  1. 6
    To test the weight of (something) by lifting. UK, US, dialectal, informal, transitive

    "[H]e took up a root or two [potatoes] here and there, and "hefted it," (that is to say, poised it carefully to judge the weight, as one does a letter for the post) and then stroked the sleek skin lovingly, and put it down gingerly for fear of any bruise."

  2. 7
    To establish or settle (someone) in an occupation or place of residence. Northern-England, Scotland, UK, US, dialectal, figuratively, informal, transitive

    "[I]t may be as well that Alan and you do not meet till he is hefted as it were to his new calling."

  3. 8
    To cause (urine) to be held in a person's bladder. Northern-England, Scotland, UK, US, broadly, dialectal, informal
  4. 9
    test the weight of something by lifting it wordnet
  5. 10
    To test the weight of (something) by lifting.; To evaluate or test (someone or something). UK, US, dialectal, figuratively, informal, transitive

    "Sim's ben to college, and he's putty smart and chipper. Come to heft him, tho', he don't weigh much 'longside o' Parson Cushing."

  6. 11
    To establish or plant (something) firmly in a place; to fix, to root, to settle. Northern-England, Scotland, UK, US, dialectal, figuratively, informal, transitive

    "[…] I hae heard him say, that the root of the matter was mair deeply hafted in that wild muirland parish than in the Canogate of Edinburgh."

  7. 12
    To have (substantial) weight; to weigh. UK, US, dialectal, informal, intransitive

    ""[I]t's yellow! is it gold?" / "My!" exclaimed his mother, weighing it in her hand, "I do believe it is. Brass never would heft so much, and would be green. Bless me, Wat, this is a find! Where ever did you come by it? In the gutters, do you say?""

  8. 13
    Of a thing: to establish or settle itself in a place. Northern-England, Scotland, UK, US, dialectal, informal, intransitive, reflexive

Synonyms

All synonyms
avoirdupoisbalancebe heavybeefbeefinessbodiness

Example

"The heft of the titanium cube was unmatched."

Common questions

What does "heft" mean?

The feel of the weight of something; heaviness.

What is a synonym for "heft"?

Common synonyms include: avoirdupois, balance, be heavy, beef, beefiness, bodiness.

How do you use "heft" in a sentence?

The heft of the titanium cube was unmatched.

How do you pronounce "heft"?

Pronounced /hɛft/.

Etymology

Etymology 1

The noun is derived from Late Middle English heft (“heaviness; something heavy, a weight”), from heven (“to lift, raise; to make an effort to lift or raise, heave”) + -th (suffix denoting a condition, quality, state of being, etc., forming nouns), by analogy with the development of weft from weven (modern English weave), etc. (also compare words like cleft from cleave, and theft from thieve, where the development occurred in Old English or earlier languages). The English word is analysable as heave + -t (suffix forming nouns from verbs). The verb is probably derived from the noun.

Etymology 2

From heave + -t (suffix forming the past and/or past participle forms of verbs).

Etymology 3

The noun is borrowed from Scots heft, haft (“pasture which sheep are familiar with; attachment of sheep to a pasture; number of sheep grazing on such a pasture; (obsolete) place of residence; situation”), probably from Old Norse hefð (“occupation; possession; prescriptive right”), from hafa (“to have; to keep, retain”), from Proto-Germanic *habjaną (“to have; to hold”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kap-, *keh₂p- (“to hold; to seize”). The verb is borrowed from Scots heft (“to cause (cattle or sheep) to become familiar with a pasture; of animals: to become familiar with a pasture; (figurative) of a person: to become settled in an occupation or place”), probably from Old Norse hefða (“to acquire prescriptive rights”), from hefð (noun): see above. Both the noun and verb may have been influenced by Scots heft (“(noun) handle of an implement, haft; (verb) to fit (an implement) with a handle”).

Etymology 4

Borrowed from Scots heft, from Old Norse hepta (“to bind; to hinder, impede; to hold back, restrain”), from Proto-Germanic *haftijaną (“to bind; to secure”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kap- (“to hold, seize”).

Etymology 5

Borrowed from German Heft (“issue of a serial publication, number; magazine; notebook; notepad”), a back-formation from heften (“to fasten”), ultimately from Proto-Germanic *haftijaną (“to bind; to secure”): see further at etymology 4.

More for "heft"

Synonyms

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