weighted

1. 1
   adjective

   Made heavier by having weights attached to or placed on it.

   The curtains had weighted hems so they hung perfectly straight.

   Divers wear weighted belts to help them sink below the surface.

2. 2
   adjective

   Arranged or biased so as to favor one party over another.

   The committee's voting system was weighted against smaller districts.

   Many felt the trade deal was heavily weighted toward the wealthier nation.

   Similarbiased, skewed, slanted, loaded

   Oppositebalanced, fair, neutral, impartial

3. 3
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of weight.

   The crew weighted the cargo evenly to keep the ship balanced.

   The scarf was weighted at the corners to keep it in place.

   Note

   One regular -ed form covers both the past tense and the participle, so they weighted, had weighted and was weighted all share a spelling. The verb behind it has a wide reach: loading fabrics with barite, handicapping a racehorse, burdening a person, assigning weights to statistics. Placed before a noun, the participle becomes an adjective, as in the "biased" meaning.

4. 4
   adjective

   Calculated so that each component of an average is multiplied by a factor reflecting its relative importance.

   The fund tracks a weighted average of bond prices across maturities.

   Each criterion was given a weighted score based on its importance to the decision.

   Oppositeunweighted

   Note

   The statistician's use is almost always fixed to a noun of calculation: weighted average, weighted sum, weighted score. Each value is multiplied by a coefficient before the values are combined, so the terms that matter more pull the result further. The verb does the same job, since to weight statistics is to assign them those coefficients.

5. 5
   adjective

   Containing a large proportion of some particular element or group.

   The reading list was weighted toward twentieth-century authors.

   The roster is weighted toward defensive players this season.

   Similarskewed, slanted, tilted

   Oppositebalanced

   Note

   Here the weight is a matter of proportion: whatever is weighted in or toward something holds a large share of it. Tasha Robinson, reviewing Snow White and the Huntsman in 2012, praises a vision of Theron as "specific, unique, and weighted in character." She means rich in character, not tilted. That neutral sense sets it apart from the "biased" meaning, which implies unfairness.

6. 6
   adjective

   Of a graph, having a numerical value assigned to each of its edges.

   Shortest-path algorithms operate on a weighted graph where edge values represent distances.

   She modeled the delivery routes as a weighted network, with travel time on every connection.

   Oppositeunweighted

   Note

   Graph theorists apply the word to the whole graph, not to a single edge. A weighted graph is one in which every edge carries a number, and that number can stand for cost, distance, capacity or whatever quantity the model needs. That is why route-finding and shortest-path problems are usually set on weighted graphs. The word sits before graph or network as a fixed technical label.

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