shipload

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   the quantity of cargo or passengers carried by, or sufficient to fill, a ship

   A shipload of preserved food arrived before the harbor froze.

2. 2
   noun

   informal: a very large quantity of people or things

   The archive received a shipload of documents from the abandoned office.

A compound of ship + load. The literal noun measures the cargo or passengers carried by a vessel; like boatload and truckload, it also developed an informal figurative use for a very large quantity.

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External links

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• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary