Meaning
To use your authority, status, or influence in an aggressive, overbearing way, especially to intimidate people or force your own way. Informal and almost always critical of the person described; the British typically say 'throw your weight about'. Informal and disapproving; it implies the power being used is excessive or unearned rather than legitimate leadership. Regional use: General English ('about' chiefly British, 'around' chiefly American).
Origin
No reliable first citation has surfaced in the standard references, so the origin is genuinely undocumented. The British form 'throw your weight about' is the earlier one in print, appearing in early twentieth-century British writing and slang collections: Eric Partridge's 1933 survey of slang records it, and P. G. Wodehouse uses it in the late 1930s. Collins labels 'throw your weight about' as the British form and treats 'throw your weight around' as the general, now chiefly American, version. A derivation from boxing slang - a heavier fighter literally throwing his weight into blows - circulates in idiom listings but is not corroborated by citation evidence and should be treated as speculation rather than fact.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- fling your weight around
- throw one's weight around
- throw your weight about
- throwing his weight about
Usage Examples
- The new manager threw his weight around so much in week one that two designers asked to transfer.
- She had the rank to throw her weight around but always preferred to persuade.
- Committee members who throw their weight around rarely get the cooperation they demand.