load.
A burden; a weight to be carried.
Meaning & usage
A burden; a weight to be carried.
I struggled up the hill with the heavy load in my rucksack.
A worry or concern to be endured, especially in the phrase a load off one's mind.
A certain number of articles or quantity of material that can be transported or processed at one time.
The truck overturned while carrying a full load of oil.
She put another load of clothes in the washing machine.
A quantity of washing put into a washing machine for a wash cycle.
I put a load on before we left.
Used to form nouns that indicate a large quantity, often corresponding to the capacity of a vehicle
A large number or amount.
I got loads of presents for my birthday!
I got a load of emails about that.
The volume of work required to be performed.
Will our web servers be able to cope with that load?
The force exerted on a structural component such as a beam, girder, cable etc.
Each of the cross-members must withstand a tensile load of 1,000 newtons.
The electrical current or power delivered by a device.
I'm worried that the load on that transformer will be too high.
A resistive force encountered by a prime mover when performing work.
Any component that draws current or power from an electrical circuit.
Connect a second 24-ohm load across the power supply's output terminals.
A unit of measure for various quantities.
Ellipsis of viral load.
A very small explosive inserted as a gag into a cigarette or cigar.
The charge of powder for a firearm; a loaded cartridge or round of ammunition.
Weight or violence of blows.
Defecation.
The contents (e.g. semen) of an ejaculation.
Nonsense; rubbish.
What a load!
The process of loading something, i.e. transferring it into memory or over a network, etc.
All of those uncompressed images are going to slow down the page load.
Prepaid phone credit.
Where this word comes from
The sense of “burden” first arose in the 13th century as a secondary meaning of Middle English lode, loade, which had the main significance of “way, course, journey”, from Old English lād (“course, journey; way, street, waterway; leading, carrying; maintenance, support”) (ultimately from Proto-Germanic *laidō (“leading, way”), Proto-Indo-European *leyt- (“to go, go forth, die”). Cognate with Middle Low German leide (“entourage, escort”), German Leite (“line, course, load”), Swedish led (“way, trail, line”), Icelandic leið (“way, course, route”). As such, load is a doublet of lode, which has preserved the older meaning. Most likely, the semantic extension of the Middle English substantive arose by conflation with the (etymologically unrelated) verb lade; however, Middle English lode occurs only as a substantive; the transitive verb load (“to charge with a load”) is recorded only in the 16th century (frequently in Shakespeare), and (except for the participle laden) has largely supplanted lade in modern English. For the meaning development from PIE, compare Latin carrus (whence carry) akin to currō.
To put a load on or in (a means of conveyance or a place of storage).
The dock workers refused to load the ship.
To place in or on a conveyance or a place of storage.
The longshoremen loaded the cargo quickly.
He loaded his stuff into his storage locker.
To put a load on something.
The truck was supposed to leave at dawn, but in fact we spent all morning loading.
To receive a load.
The truck is designed to load easily.
To be placed into storage or conveyance.
The containers load quickly and easily.
To fill (a firearm or artillery) with munition.
I pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. I had forgotten to load the gun.
To insert (an item or items) into an apparatus so as to ready it for operation, such as a reel of film into a camera, sheets of paper into a printer etc.
Now that you've loaded the film [into the camera], you're ready to start shooting.
Now that you've loaded the camera [with film], you're ready to start shooting.
To fill (an apparatus) with raw material.
The workers loaded the blast furnace with coke and ore.
To be put into use in an apparatus.
The cartridge was designed to load easily.
To read (data or a program) from a storage medium into computer memory.
Click OK to load the selected data.
To transfer from a storage medium into computer memory.
The file took ten minutes to load.
This program takes an age to load.
To put runners on first, second and third bases
He walks to load the bases.
To tamper with so as to produce a biased outcome.
You can load the dice in your favour by researching the company before your interview.
The wording of the ballot paper loaded the vote in favour of the Conservative candidate.
To ask or adapt a question so that it will be more likely to be answered in a certain way.
To encumber with something negative, to place as an encumbrance.
The new owners had loaded the company with debt.
The new owners loaded debt on the company.
To provide in abundance.
He loaded his system with carbs before the marathon.
He loaded carbs into his system before the marathon.
To weight (a cane, whip, etc.) with lead or similar.
To adulterate or drug.
to load wine
To magnetize.
to top up or purchase phone credits
Where this word comes from
The sense of “burden” first arose in the 13th century as a secondary meaning of Middle English lode, loade, which had the main significance of “way, course, journey”, from Old English lād (“course, journey; way, street, waterway; leading, carrying; maintenance, support”) (ultimately from Proto-Germanic *laidō (“leading, way”), Proto-Indo-European *leyt- (“to go, go forth, die”). Cognate with Middle Low German leide (“entourage, escort”), German Leite (“line, course, load”), Swedish led (“way, trail, line”), Icelandic leið (“way, course, route”). As such, load is a doublet of lode, which has preserved the older meaning. Most likely, the semantic extension of the Middle English substantive arose by conflation with the (etymologically unrelated) verb lade; however, Middle English lode occurs only as a substantive; the transitive verb load (“to charge with a load”) is recorded only in the 16th century (frequently in Shakespeare), and (except for the participle laden) has largely supplanted lade in modern English. For the meaning development from PIE, compare Latin carrus (whence carry) akin to currō.
A person that spends all day online. The term was originally used in the late 1980s to describe users on free Q-Link (later America Online) accounts who never signed off the system at great expense to the company.
She never logs off; she is a real LOAD!
Where this word comes from
Acronym of living online all day.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.