Ultimately from .

• (British) IPA: /ˈpɒn.dəɹ.əs/
• (America) IPA: /ˈpɑn.dɚ.əs/

ponderous

1. Heavy, massive, weighty.
   • 1879, Julian Hawthorne, chapter 5, in Archibald Malmaison:

     [H]e saw, at the end of a shallow embrasure, a ponderous door of dark wood, braced with iron.

2. (figuratively, by extension) Serious, onerous, oppressive.
   • 1845, Charles Dickens, chapter 11, in Pictures From Italy:

     In its court-yard—worthy of the Castle of Otranto in its ponderous gloom—is a massive staircase.

   • 1915, Virginia Woolf, chapter 19, in The Voyage Out:

     For the time, her own body was the source of all the life in the world, which tried to burst forth here—there—and was repressed now by Mr. Bax, now by Evelyn, now by the imposition of ponderous stupidity.

3. Clumsy, unwieldy, or slow, especially due to weight.
   • 1852 July, Herman Melville, “Book XVI. First Night of Their Arrival in the City.”, in Pierre: Or, The Ambiguities, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC ↗, section I, pages 312–313 ↗:

     [T]he inmates of the coach, by numerous hard, painful joltings, and ponderous, dragging trundlings, are suddenly made sensible of some great change in the character of the road.

   • 1915, Samuel Hopkins Adams, chapter 10, in Little Miss Grouch:

     Slowly, through an increasing glow that lighted land and water alike, the leviathan of the deep made her ponderous progress to the hill-encircled harbor.

   • 1919, Virginia Woolf, Kew Gardens:

     Following his steps . . . came two elderly women of the lower middle class, one stout and ponderous, the other rosy cheeked and nimble.

4. Dull, boring, tedious; long-winded in expression.
   • 1863, Elizabeth Gaskell, Cousin Phillis:

     Over supper the minister did unbend a little into one or two ponderous jokes.

   • 1918, Gene Stratton-Porter, chapter 2, in A Daughter Of The Land:

     [A]s certainly as any one said anything in her presence that she had occasion to repeat, she changed the wording to six-syllabled mouthfuls, delivered with ponderous circumlocution.

5. (rare) Characterized by or associated with pondering.
   • 1850, Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country, volume 41, page 242 ↗:

     They are the pleasantest of all companions, and perhaps the most affluent in correct opinions of men and things generally, although little addicted to ponderous consideration or deep research.

6. (obsolete) Dense.

• (heavy, massive) heavy, massive
• (serious, onerous) oppressive, serious

• Russian: тяжёлый

• French: pesant, maladroit, béotien, grossier, conformiste
• German: schwerfällig
• Russian: неуклю́жий
• Spanish: pesado, torpe, beocio, grosero, conformista

• French: lourd, pesant, écrasant, abrutissant, dogmatique
• Portuguese: enfadonho
• Russian: ску́чный
• Spanish: grave, torpe, abrumador, agobiante, aplastante, dogmático