Illustrative Context

The rock was heavy.

Target Sense

• The most generic adjective expressing the considerable weight of a physical object.
• The default opposite of 'light': avoid intensive terms meaning especially heavy.
• Use the basic term for the literal sense, referring to the weight of an object. Avoid terms restricted to figurative senses, such as ‘difficult’, ‘serious’, ‘taxing’, ‘uncomfortable’.
• In some languages the adjectival form may be morphologically complex, often derived from a basic verbal root for weigh, be heavy’, e.g. Spanish pesado and Italian pesante. Provided that such a derivation has become the default adjectival form for 'heavy' in a given language, then that is the appropriate lexeme to select for that language. Otherwise, avoid derivations such as English weighty, if not the default adjective.