weigh on

English

Verb

weigh on (third-person singular simple present weighs on, present participle weighing on, simple past and past participle weighed on)

1. (figurative) To cause distress to or impose a burden on; to trouble.
   • 1813, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, ch. 40:

     She had got rid of two of the secrets which had weighed on her for a fortnight.

   • 1856, Charles Kingsley, Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet, "Prefatory Memoir":

     The Crimean war weighed on him like a nightmare.

   • 1917, Edith Wharton, Summer, ch. 8:

     Her shame weighed on her like a physical oppression.

   • 2013 October 26, Sarah Rainey, "Victoria Hislop interview," Telegraph (UK) (retrieved 9 Jan 2018):

     [H]er cat . . . has been missing for two days, she tells me, and his unexplained absence has been weighing on her mind.

   • 2017 November 15, Ana Swanson, "Trump’s Trade Approach Diverges Sharply from Free Trade Republicans," New York Times (retrieved 9 Jan 2018):

     Lance Fritz, the president and C.E.O. of Union Pacific Railroad, said pulling out of Nafta would harm trade, which would in turn weigh on his business.