Ponderous
/ˈpɒn.dəɹ.əs/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
adjHeavy, massive, weighty.
adjSerious, onerous, oppressive.
Sentence Examples
Seals are clumsy and ponderous on land, but very graceful in the water.
The old professor's lectures are long-winded and ponderous.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The old man had difficulty carrying the ____ box because it was extremely heavy.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The professor's ____ lecture style made it difficult for students to stay engaged for the full hour.
Word Origin & History
Ultimately from Latin ponderōsus (“weighty”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"[H]e saw, at the end of a shallow embrasure, a ponderous door of dark wood, braced with iron."
— 1879, Julian Hawthorne, chapter 5, in Archibald Malmaison:
"The great elephant, when the cage was being placed, would, at a signal from its keeper, place its ponderous head against one side of the cage and push."
— c. 1920, Edgar B. P. Darlington, chapter 4, in The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings:
"Set against the background of the American civil war, with Keaton a cunning but unskilled driver, unaided, of the ponderous giant of a locomotive, it remains not only probably the funniest film about railways ever made, but one of the funniest silent films to retain its comic power over today's more sophisticated audiences."
— 1958 February 26, David Gunston, “Railways on the Screen”, in Railway Magazine, page 88:
"It was Dryden's opinion . . . that the drama required an alternation of comick and tragick scenes; and that it is necessary to mitigate, by alleviations of merriment, the pressure of ponderous events, and the fatigue of toilsome passions."
— 1781, Samuel Johnson, “Dryden”, in Lives of the Poets:
"In its court-yard—worthy of the Castle of Otranto in its ponderous gloom—is a massive staircase."
— 1845, Charles Dickens, chapter 11, in Pictures From Italy:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The old man had difficulty carrying the ____ box because it was extremely heavy.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The professor's ____ lecture style made it difficult for students to stay engaged for the full hour.