váha

Váha, in Czech and Slovak, denotes weight in English. It can refer to the gravitational force acting on a body or, more commonly in everyday language, the mass of an object as measured by a scale. The term also denotes instruments used to determine weight, such as scales and balances.

In physics, weight is a force equal to the mass multiplied by the local gravitational acceleration (W = m·g). The standard SI unit for weight is the newton (N); mass is measured in kilograms (kg). Weight varies with gravity, so an object would weigh less on the Moon than on Earth. In everyday use, however, people often refer to weight as the amount of matter in an object, effectively treating it as mass.

Common instruments for measuring váha include beam balances (balance scales), which compare an unknown mass with known masses, and spring scales, which measure force via elastic deformation. Digital scales use load cells and electronics to convert force into a numerical reading. Bathroom or body scales estimate personal weight. Many scales support tare functionality to ignore the weight of containers.

Váha finds applications across science, industry, medicine, and daily life—for body weight, vehicle loads, product packaging, and infrastructure planning. Accurate weight measurement relies on calibration, known reference weights, and periodic maintenance. Metrology governs the definitions and traceability of mass and weight, with the kilogram defined by fixed constants and weight remaining a gravity-dependent quantity derived from mass.

In everyday language, váha can be used loosely to mean weight or sometimes mass, depending on context, but in scientific contexts weight is a force and mass is the inertial quantity.