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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
ponderous
adjective
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ an elephant's ponderous head
▪ Holyfield had a considerable advantage over his ponderous opponent.
▪ the professor's ponderous voice
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ His films are ponderous, occasionally dull, always intriguing and kind of great.
▪ Inquiry is a serious matter and should be done boldly, whether applied to innovation or ponderous theoretical matter.
▪ It seemed like such a ponderous and old-fashioned choice.
▪ Once a few have been mastered it is surprising how quickly the most ponderous sounding scientific name acquires a familiar ring.
▪ The old lady's footsteps could be heard, ponderous and threatening, on the front steps.
▪ The only other downside I noticed was that the car tended to be a little ponderous in lower gears around town.
▪ Woolley released three loud chords, and started on a ponderous version of the Sailors' Horn pipe.
▪ You could feel the spirit of Roy Peck there in that big old white frame house with the ponderous cottonwoods in front.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Ponderous

Ponderous \Pon"der*ous\, a. [L. ponderosus, from pondus, -eris, a weight: cf. F. pond['e]reux. See Ponder.]

  1. Very heavy; weighty; as, a ponderous shield; a ponderous load; the ponderous elephant.

    The sepulcher . . . Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws.
    --Shak.

  2. Important; momentous; forcible. ``Your more ponderous and settled project.''
    --Shak.

  3. Heavy; dull; wanting; lightless or spirit; as, a ponderous style; a ponderous joke.

    Ponderous spar (Min.), heavy spar, or barytes. See Barite.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
ponderous

c.1400, "thick;" early 15c., "heavy, weighty, clumsy," from Latin ponderosus "of great weight; full of meaning," from pondus (genitive ponderis) "weight" (see pound (n.1)). Meaning "tedious" is first recorded 1704. Related: Ponderously; ponderousness.

Wiktionary
ponderous

a. 1 heavy, massive, weighty. 2 (context figuratively by extension English) serious, onerous, oppressive. 3 clumsy, unwieldy, or slow, especially due to weight. 4 dull, boring, tedious; long-winded in expression. 5 (context rare English) Characterized by or associated with pondering. 6 (context obsolete English) dense.

WordNet
ponderous
  1. adj. slow and laborious because of weight; "the heavy tread of tired troops"; "moved with a lumbering sag-bellied trot"; "ponderous prehistoric beasts"; "a ponderous yawn" [syn: heavy, lumbering]

  2. having great mass and weight and unwieldiness; "a ponderous stone"; "a ponderous burden"; "ponderous weapons"

  3. labored and dull; "a ponderous speech"

Usage examples of "ponderous".

The journey took several minutes even at a sprint, through sunken tunnels and window-lined connecting bridges, up and down grilled ramps, through ponderous internal airlocks and sweltering aeroponics labs, taking this detour or that to avoid a blown bubble or failed airlock.

Whereat he fiercely did but scowl the more, And strove amain his ponderous sword to draw.

Now a fat and ponderous avocat rose up and was about to speak, but the Bailly, with a peevish gesture, waved him down, and he settled heavily into place again.

So Admiral Beagle found himself walking through the shadowed grass, feeling ponderous, seething, but keeping tally.

The most patient Reader, who computes that three ponderous volumes have been already employed on the events of four centuries, may, perhaps, be alarmed at the long prospect of nine hundred years.

These huge, ponderous, and lethargic beasts of burden, Bozo knew, are most commonly domesticated by man, and are used to draw wains, much in the manner of oxen.

With ponderous care, de Nore let Gorony pour wine from the cruet into his great, jewelled chalice, then blessed the water and added but a few drops.

The landslide that started when Dunster threw the first stone was slow, ponderous and inescapable.

Thyphoeus and Mimas, Porphyrion and Rhoecus, the giant brood of old, steeped in ignorance and wedded to corruption, had scaled the heights of Olympus, assisted by that audacious flinger of deadly ponderous missiles, who stands ever ready with his terrific sling--Supplehouse, the Enceladus of the press.

He stepped in and let Gribble show him a lever, which he pulled, and which lowered the ponderous slab down on them again.

Equally ponderous and evasive, Don is one of the many middlemen hired to interpose between Hef and the outside world.

Behind came the ponderous Juggers, grunting, gurgling, teeth clashing together with the vibration of their steps.

But before I could feel much, the Lakan herald began to call, in Enchian with the odd Lakan lilt, beginning with ponderous formalities.

The fierce Chnodomar, shaking the ponderous javelin which he had victoriously wielded against the brother of Magnentius, led the van of the Barbarians, and moderated by his experience the martial ardor which his example inspired.

Bunched close together they came after me, the nailless, padded feet of their ponderous mounts making no sound upon the ocher, moss-like vegetation of the dead sea bottom.