[f. WEIGHT sb.1]
† 1. trans. To oppress (the mind); also pass., to be oppressed in mind or spirit. Sc. Obs.
1647. R. Baillie, Lett. (1842), III. 3. However this silence sometimes weighted my mind, yet I found it the best and wisest course.
1654. Sir A. Johnston (Ld. Wariston), Diary, 10 April (S.H.S.), II. 230. Shoe told me my daughter Elizabeth had found under hir seaknesse a deserted condition and now shoe was weyghted with it.
1728. P. Walker, Life Peden (1827), I. 80. When he awak’d, he seem’d more than ordinary weighted, and groan’d heavily, saying, Sad Days for Scotland.
2. To load with a weight; to supply with an additional weight; to make weighty. Also with down.
1747. Hooson, Miner’s Dict., G 3 b. If the Wholes be too soft, that we think it will let the Forks settle when they come to be weighted, we put a Sill under them.
1813. Vancouver, Agric. Devon, 65. The large masses [of stone] used for weighting the levers of the cider-presses.
1851–4. Tomlinson, Cycl. Arts & Manuf., II. 31/1. The boards … are … filled with earth to weight them down.
1885. Manch. Exam., 10 Sept., 5/3. A bough is cut from a tree … weighted with a few heavy stones and then dragged over the soil.
fig. 1825. Coleridge, Aids Refl., 78. We may see with complacency the Arrows of Satire feathered with Wit, weighted with Sense, and discharged by a strong Arm, fly home to their mark.
1860. Motley, Netherl. (1868), I. ii. 46. Intricate nets of diplomatic intrigue,… thoroughly weighted with Mexican gold.
b. fig. To oppress with weight, to weigh down; chiefly pass., to be heavily burdened (by or with oppressive conditions or circumstances). Also with down.
1858. Froude, Hist. Eng., III. xvii. 445. Weighted as he was with faults,… he fought his battle bravely.
1872. Geo. Eliot, Middlem., xlvi. It wants to have a House of Commons which is not weighted with nominees of the landed class.
1880. Swinburne, Study Shaks., 236. The memory of Mr. Tennyson would be weighted and degraded by the ascription of whole volumes of pilfered and diluted verse.
c. techn. To add weight to (an inferior commodity) by the admixture or use of an adulterant.
1862. C. O’Neill, Dict. Calico Printing & Dyeing, 19. A sulphate of baryta … is used for ‘weighting;’ that is, for giving weight and apparent body and firmness to inferior goods.
1886. Daily Tel., 24 June (Cassell). Dark arts are in certain quarters practised … in disguising and weighting teas.
1895. Daily News, 1 Oct., 6/3. The ingenuity of the foreign dyer was such that he was able to ‘weight’ or adulterate his silk.
d. Statistics. To multiply the components of (an average) by compensating factors.
1901. A. L. Bowley, Elem. Statist., 111. The very important statistical method known as ‘weighting the average.’ Ibid. Should we weight the numbers given by the total numbers of inhabitants of the contributing counties, or by their distance from London, or by some quantity derived from these?
3. To assign to (a horse) the weight he must carry in a handicap race. (Cf. WEIGHT sb.1 12 a.)
1846. Darvill, Engl. Race Horse (ed. 3), II. 286. Such horse is generally highly weighted, to bring him on a fair equality with the others.
1856. ‘Stonehenge,’ Brit. Sports, II. I. i. § 2. Horses are constantly entered and run solely with the view of inducing the handicapper to ‘weight’ them at a low scale.
1883. ‘Rapier,’ Types of Turf, 73. A very bad colt … was weighted in a manner ludicrously disproportionate to his capacity.
fig. 1865. Huxley, Lay Serm., ii. (1870), 30. So long as this potential motherhood is her lot, woman will be found to be fearfully weighted in the race of life.
1875. Merivale, Gen. Hist. Rome, v. 29. The plebeians, however unfairly weighted in the race for riches, could not be always kept in poverty.
4. (In senses of WEIGH v.1) trans. To ascertain the weight of (goods, etc.) by means of a weighing machine; to weigh. lit. and fig. Also colloq., to feel the weight or heaviness of (something held in the hands).
1865–. [see WEIGHTING vbl. sb.].
1898. L. Quiller Couch, Span. Maid, xiv. 202. Why, there hasn’ a-bin a touch of cold in the air since the fire blazed up back ’pon Christmas Eve; an’ heavy!—you can a-most weight it in yer hands.
b. Of a jockey: To weight out, in, to undergo weighing before or after a race. = WEIGH v. 9.
1877. Rules of Racing, § 34 (iii). It is optional for the jockey to weight out or in with his bridle.
