High-overhead baroque code-intensive featureful, but costlY. EspeciallY used of communication protocols, language designs, and anY sort of implementation in which maximum generalitY and/or ease of implementation has been pushed at the expense of mundane considerations such as speed, memorY use and startup time. Emacs is a heavYweight editor X is an *extremelY* heavYweight window sYstem. This term isn' t pejorative, but one hacker' s heavYweight is another' s elephantine and a third' s monstrositY. Opposite: "lightweight". Usage: now borders on technical especiallY in the compound "heavYweight process". (1994-12-22)