ponderous

adjective

pon·​der·​ous ˈpän-d(ə-)rəs 

1

: of very great weight

2

: unwieldy or clumsy because of weight and size

3

: oppressively or unpleasantly dull : lifeless

ponderous prose

ponderously adverb

ponderousness noun

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The Serious History of Ponderous

Ponderous is ultimately from the Latin word for "weight," namely, "pondus" (which also gave us "ponder" and "preponderance" and is related to "pound"). We adopted "ponderous" with the literal sense "heavy" from Anglo-French ponderus in the 15th century, and early on we appended a figurative sense of "weighty," that is, "serious" or "important." But we stopped using the "serious" sense of "ponderous" around 200 years ago - perhaps because in the meantime we'd imposed on it a different figurative sense of "dull and lifeless," which we still use today.

Synonyms

• arid
• boring
• colorless
• drab
• dreary
• drudging
• dry
• dull
• dusty
• flat
• heavy
• ho-hum
• humdrum
• jading
• jejune
• leaden
• mind-numbing
• monochromatic
• monotonous
• numbing
• old
• pedestrian
• slow
• stale
• stodgy
• stuffy
• stupid
• tame
• tedious
• tiresome
• tiring
• uninteresting
• wearisome
• weary
• wearying

Choose the Right Synonym for ponderous

heavy, weighty, ponderous, cumbrous, cumbersome mean having great weight.

heavy implies that something has greater density or thickness than the average of its kind or class.

a heavy child for his age

weighty suggests having actual and not just relative weight.

a load of weighty boxes

ponderous implies having great weight because of size and massiveness with resulting great inertia.

ponderous elephants in a circus parade

cumbrous and cumbersome imply heaviness and bulkiness that make for difficulty in grasping, moving, carrying, or manipulating.

wrestled with the cumbrous furniture

early cameras were cumbersome and inconvenient

Examples of ponderous in a Sentence

students struggling to stay awake during a ponderous lecture

fell asleep during the ponderous speech

Recent Examples on the Web

The Room Next Door is an alternately rapturous and ponderous meditation on mortality, though in a very Almodóvarian fashion, that exploration comes by way of a fantasy of set directing one’s own death, down to the moment, location, and outfit worn. —Alison Willmore, Vulture, 7 Sep. 2024

Clint Mansell’s score is the driving force behind this ponderous movie’s mysterious aura, with a pair of unlikely collaborators that reflect the movie’s tonal soup. —Indiewire Staff, IndieWire, 14 Aug. 2024

The world is not likely to see a return to the large-scale, ponderous, and protocol-heavy diplomacy of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogues of the past, no matter how productive Biden and Xi’s conversation is. —Danny Russel, Foreign Affairs, 14 Nov. 2021

The episodes are dense and well-paced; this is not a ponderous artistic experiment, though the tightness of its construction speaks to a care for the craft of TV-making. —Vogue, 19 July 2024

Word History

Etymology

Middle English, from Anglo-French ponderus, from Latin ponderosus, from ponder-, pondus weight

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

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Kids Definition

ponderous

adjective

pon·​der·​ous ˈpän-d(ə-)rəs 

1

: very heavy

2

: unpleasantly dull

fell asleep during the ponderous speech

ponderously adverb

ponderousness noun