Preponderate

verb

verb ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To outweigh; to be heavier than; to exceed in weight. transitive

    "an inconsiderable weight by virtue of its distance from the Centre of the Ballance, will preponderate much greater magnitudes"

  2. 2
    weigh more heavily wordnet
  3. 3
    To overpower by stronger or moral power. transitive

    "That is the preponderating consideration to which everything else has to yield."

  4. 4
    To cause to prefer; to incline; to decide. obsolete, transitive

    "The desire to spare Christian blood preponderates him for peace."

  5. 5
    To exceed in weight or influence; hence, to predominate. intransitive

    "Anxiety preponderated over hope; and it was scarcely possible for Evelyn to encounter a danger not previously conjured up by the alarmed fancy of his mistress."

Synonyms

All synonyms
overbalanceascendantbestbestridebetterboss

Example

More examples

"an inconsiderable weight by virtue of its distance from the Centre of the Ballance, will preponderate much greater magnitudes"

Etymology

From Latin praeponderatus, past participle of praeponderāre (“to outweigh”).

More for "preponderate"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

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