Your English: Idioms: weight

‘We are very fortunate at this football club to have a manager who is worth his weight in gold’. This means that the person in question is extremely useful or valuable. The same idiom can be applied to inanimate objects too, as in ‘To a translator, a good dictionary can be worth its weight in gold’.

If you pull your weight, you do your fair share of work or your fair share of a particular task. The expression is more commonly used in the negative, as in ‘He simply wasn’t pulling his weight, so he had to go’. If something carries weight, it has a lot of influence, as in ‘Her opinions carry considerable weight with the president’, and if you throw your weight behind something, you use your reputation or influence to support a person or ideas, as in ‘The prime minister is throwing his full weight behind the proposals’.

If you throw your weight around, however, you use your authority or influence in an unreasonable or unpleasant way, as in ‘As soon as he took over the department, he started throwing his weight around’ or ‘I wish you’d stop throwing your weight around all the time’.

 A weight off your mind is something that you no longer have to worry about, as in ‘After several weeks of worry, the verdict is a huge weight off my mind’. If you take the weight off your feet, you sit down and have a rest, as in ‘Come on in and take the weight off your feet. I’ll make you a cup of coffee’.