make heavy weather of

verb

To overcomplicate (something); to make (things) appear worse than they are.

Ask AI about this wordChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

Meanings

verbmake heavy weather of (third-person singular simple present makes heavy weather of, present participle making heavy weather of, simple past and past participle made heavy weather of)

present singular third person makes heavy weather of · participle present making heavy weather of · participle past made heavy weather of · past made heavy weather of · alternative make heavy going of

  1. transitiveTo overcomplicate (something); to make (things) appear worse than they are.

    Philosophers, possibly with justification, make heavy weather of the concept of causation, but to a working biologist causation is a rather simple statistical concept.

    1982, Richard Dawkins, The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene, Oxford University Press
Cite this entry
APA

make heavy weather of. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/make%20heavy%20weather%20of

MLA

“make heavy weather of.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/make%20heavy%20weather%20of. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “make heavy weather of,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/make%20heavy%20weather%20of.

Source: make heavy weather of on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.