Meanings
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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.
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2
noun
informal: a very large quantity of people or things
The archive received a shipload of documents from the abandoned office.
Thesaurus
Etymology
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.