means The sport or activity of lifting heavy weights, either competitively or for strength and fitness.

from A transparent compound of "weight" and "lifting," both rooted in Old English — "weight" from "wiht" (related to the verb "wegan," to carry or bear, a cousin of the same root that gives us "wagon") and "lift" from a Norse-influenced word meaning to raise. The term itself is a fairly modern coinage, arriving with the formal sport in the 19th century, when strongmen and fitness culture turned the ancient act of heaving heavy things into something you could put on a scoreboard.