The standard reductive perturbation method has been employed to derive the Korteweg-deVries (K-dV) and Burgers (BG) equations to investigate the basic properties of heavy-ion-acoustic (HIA) waves in a plasma system which is supposed to be composed of nonthermal electrons, Boltzmann distributed light ions, and adiabatic positively charged inertial heavy ions. The HIA solitary and shock structures are found to exist with either positive or negative potential. It is found that the effects of adiabaticity of inertial heavy ions, nonthermality of electrons, and number densities of plasma components significantly modify the basic properties of the HIA solitary and shock waves. The implications of our results may be helpful in understanding the electrostatic perturbations in various laboratory and astrophysical plasma environments.