heft
n. uncountablen. the weight or heavy feel of something. It can also mean the power or importance of a person or thing.
n. the weight or heavy quality of an object; by extension, the power, importance, or influence of a person or entity. Often used in agricultural or informal contexts to describe the physical or metaphorical weight of a situation.
The heft of the old wooden axe was surprising.
The heft of the new legislation will be felt by small businesses across the country next month.
While the initial proposal seemed minor, the heft of the subsequent amendments suggested a fundamental shift in the company's long-term strategy.
The noun is derived from Late Middle English heft (“heaviness; something heavy, a weight”), from heven (“to lift, raise”) + -th (suffix denoting a condition, quality, state of being, etc., forming nouns), by analogy with the development of weft from weven (modern English weave), etc. (also compare words like cleft from cleave, and theft from thieve, where the development occurred in Old English or earlier languages). The English word is analysable as heave + -t (suffix forming nouns from verbs). The verb is probably derived from the noun.
From heave + -t (suffix forming the past and/or past participle forms of verbs).
The noun is borrowed from Scots heft, haft (“pasture which sheep are familiar with; attachment of sheep to a pasture; number of sheep grazing on such a pasture; (obsolete) place of residence; situation”), probably from Old Norse hefð (“occupation; possession; prescriptive right”), from hafa (“to have; to keep, retain”), from Proto-Germanic habjaną (“to have; to hold”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European kap-, *keh₂p- (“to hold; to seize”). The verb is borrowed from Scots heft (“to cause (cattle or sheep) to become familiar with a pasture; of animals: to become familiar with a pasture; (figurative) of a person: to become settled in an occupation or place”), probably from Old Norse hefða (“to acquire prescriptive rights”), from hefð (noun): see above. Both the noun and verb may have been influenced by Scots heft (“(noun) handle of an implement, haft; (verb) to fit (an implement) with a handle”).
Borrowed from Scots heft, from Old Norse hepta (“to bind; to hinder, impede; to hold back, restrain”), from Proto-Germanic haftijaną (“to bind; to secure”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European kap- (“to hold, seize”).
Borrowed from German Heft (“issue of a serial publication, number; magazine; notebook; notepad”), a back-formation from heften (“to fasten”), ultimately from Proto-Germanic *haftijaną (“to bind; to secure”): see further at etymology 4.