heavy hitter
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
A person with great influence or power
Literally: a person who hits hard
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Though successful in most things they Turn their minds to, the heavy hitters of Japanese industry have not yet cracked making airliners.
He's a heavy hitter, admitted.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “heavy hitter” mean?
A person with great influence or power Literally: a person who hits hard
Is “heavy hitter” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.