load

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A heavy thing that is carried.

   I struggled up the hill with the heavy load on my back.

2. 2
   noun

   An amount of something carried or moved at one time.

   The truck overturned while carrying a full load of oil.

3. 3
   verb

   To put a large amount of something into or onto a vehicle or container.

   The workers loaded the bags onto the trucks.

4. 4
   verb

   To put bullets into a gun or film into a camera.

   The soldiers loaded their rifles carefully.

Common collocations

• load a gun Verb + noun

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 pr…

Topics