weigh: [OE] The etymological notion underlying weigh is ‘carrying’: for it comes ultimately from the Indo-European base *wegh-, which also produced Latin vehere ‘carry’ (source of English vector, vehicle, etc). The idea of ‘heaviness’ is a secondary development. The word’s immediate source was prehistoric Germanic *wegan, which also produced Dutch wegen, Swedish väga, and Danish veie ‘weigh’ and German bewegen ‘move’. The derivative weight [OE] also goes back to prehistoric Germanic. => vehicle, waggon, wee
weigh (v.)
Old English wegan (class V strong verb, past tense wæg, past participle wægon) "find the weight of, measure; have weight; lift, carry, support, sustain, bear; move," from Proto-Germanic *wegan (cognates: Old Saxon wegan, Old Frisian wega, Dutch wegen "to weigh," Old Norse vega, Old High German wegan "to move, carry, weigh," German wiegen "to weigh"), from PIE *wegh- "to move" (cognates: Sanskrit vahati "carries, conveys," vahitram "vessel, ship;" Avestan vazaiti "he leads, draws;" Greek okhos "carriage;" Latin vehere "to carry, convey;" Old Church Slavonic vesti "to carry, convey;" Lithuanian vežu "to carry, convey;" Old Irish fecht "campaign, journey").
The original sense was of motion, which led to that of lifting, then to that of "measure the weight of." The older sense of "lift, carry" survives in the nautical phrase weigh anchor. Figurative sense of "to consider, ponder" (in reference to words, etc.) is recorded from mid-14c. To weigh in in the literal sense is from 1868, originally of jockeys; figurative meaning "bring one's influence to bear" is from 1909.
双语例句
1. Cranston and others were improperly trying to weigh in on the decision.
