makeweight

English

Alternative forms

  • make-weight

Etymology

From make + weight.

Noun

makeweight (plural makeweights)

  1. Something of inferior quality which is included in a shipment to make up the weight.
    • 1893, Richard Le Gallienne, in a publisher's report on stories by Ernest Dowson, quoted in Jad Adams, Madder Music, Stronger Wine, page 88.
      I would advise you to accept these as an instalment of a volume, (they are not big enough to make one themselves) with the promise that the stories to come should be more striking, more original in theme not less so, not mere makeweights than those under consideration.
  2. Something included to add to the apparent weight or force of an argument.
    He added a long litany of peripheral precedents which the judge dismissed as mere makeweights.

See also

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