From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishweigh somebody down phrasal verb1 BENDCARRYif something weighs you down, it is heavy and difficult to carrybe weighed down with something Sally was weighed down with shopping bags.2 WORRIEDif a problem weighs you down, it makes you feel worried and upsetbe weighed down by/with something He felt weighed down by his responsibilities. a family weighed down with grief → weigh→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
weigh down• But possessions stick like leeches: you're scared to let go, but they weigh you down.• It tormented me beyond all endurance, while at the same time the awful silence of the terrible prison weighed me down.• It was a load lifted from the heart, a load we had not even known weighed us down.• Good thing you got around to it, weighing her down and all that, getting her nice and heavy.• Heavily - weighted oil stocks also weighed the market down as investors booked profits after the sector's recent strong run.• While child care could still weigh us down, it always helped to feel like a pioneer.• Was history weighing them down, or the same stress felt by the seven other men on the blocks beside him?• Our inner lives have been hideously diminished by isolation from an ecosocial matrix, weighing us down with sadness and apathy.be weighed down with something• She was weighed down with a confusing mixture of feelings that sometimes felt so mellow and piquant, it was almost pleasant.• These boroughs, like the London borough of Newham, are weighed down with more than their fair share of problems.• Suitcases that had once been quite light now felt as if they were weighed down with stones.be weighed down by/with something• She was weighed down with a confusing mixture of feelings that sometimes felt so mellow and piquant, it was almost pleasant.• The rest were weighed down by an accumulation of debts incurred during the wars and natural disasters of the preceding century.• She was weighed down by it.• These boroughs, like the London borough of Newham, are weighed down with more than their fair share of problems.• Suitcases that had once been quite light now felt as if they were weighed down with stones.• She told teachers she was weighed down by the responsibilities of looking after her three younger sisters, including a nine-month-old baby.• His successors were weighed down by the sense of duty. 