Hefty

//ˈhɛfti// adj, name

adj, name ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    With heft; heavy, strong, vigorous, mighty, impressive

    "He can throw a hefty punch."

  2. 2
    Strong; bulky.

    "They use some hefty bolts to hold up road signs."

  3. 3
    Possessing physical strength and weight; rugged and powerful; powerfully or heavily built.

    "He was a tall, hefty man."

  4. 4
    Heavy, weighing a lot.

    "She carries a hefty backpack full of books."

  5. 5
    Large, healthy.

    "That's going to cost you a hefty sum."

Adjective
  1. 1
    large in amount or extent or degree wordnet
  2. 2
    of considerable weight and size wordnet
  3. 3
    (of a person) possessing physical strength and weight; rugged and powerful wordnet
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A surname.

Synonyms

All synonyms
brawnyconsiderableheavylargesizeablestrong

Example

More examples

"After receiving a hefty blow to the head, the man spoke only gibberish."

Etymology

19th century. From heft (“weight”) + -y. The similarity with German heftig (“vigorous, violent, intense”) is apparently coincidental. From the German are Dutch, Danish, Norwegian heftig, Swedish häftig.

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