load
English
Etymology
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),[1] and (except for the participle laden) has largely supplanted lade in modern English.[2]
Pronunciation
- (General American) IPA(key): /loʊd/
Audio (US) (file) - (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ləʊd/
- Rhymes: -əʊd
Noun
load (plural loads)
- A burden; a weight to be carried.
- I struggled up the hill with the heavy load in my rucksack.
- (figuratively) A worry or concern to be endured, especially in the phrase a load off one's mind.
- Dryden
- Our life's a load.
- 2005, Coldplay, Green Eyes
- I came here with a load and it feels so much lighter, now I’ve met you.
- Dryden
- 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.
- (in combination) Used to form nouns that indicate a large quantity, often corresponding to the capacity of a vehicle
- (often in the plural, colloquial) 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?
- (engineering) 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.
- (electrical engineering) The electrical current or power delivered by a device.
- I'm worried that the load on that transformer will be too high.
- (engineering) A resistive force encountered by a prime mover when performing work.
- (electrical engineering) 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.
- 1866, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, Volume 1, p. 172:
- If this load equals its modern representative, it contains 18 cwt. of dry, 19 of new hay.
- The viral load
- 1866, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, Volume 1, p. 172:
- A very small explosive inserted as a gag into a cigarette or cigar.
- The charge of powder for a firearm.
- (obsolete) Weight or violence of blows.
- (Can we find and add a quotation of Milton to this entry?)
- (vulgar, slang) The contents (e.g. semen) of an ejaculation.
- 2006, John Patrick, Barely Legal, page 102
- Already, Robbie had dumped a load into his dad, and now, before my very eyes, was Alan's own cock lube seeping out
- 2009, John Butler Wanderlust, page 35
- It felt so good, I wanted to just keep going until I blew a load down his throat, but I hadn't even seen his ass yet, and I sure didn't want to come yet.
- 2006, John Patrick, Barely Legal, page 102
- (euphemistic) Nonsense; rubbish.
- What a load!
- (computing) 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.
Synonyms
Hyponyms
Derived terms
- see Category:English words derived from: load (noun)
Translations
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Verb
load (third-person singular simple present loads, present participle loading, simple past loaded, past participle loaded or (archaic) loaden)
- (transitive) To put a load on or in (a means of conveyance or a place of storage).
- The dock workers refused to load the ship.
- (transitive) 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.
- (intransitive) To put a load on something.
- The truck was supposed to leave at dawn, but in fact we spent all morning loading.
- (intransitive) To receive a load.
- The truck is designed to load easily.
- (intransitive) To be placed into storage or conveyance.
- The containers load quickly and easily.
- (transitive) To fill (a firearm or artillery) with munition.
- I pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. I had forgotten to load the gun.
- (transitive) 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.
- (transitive) To fill (an apparatus) with raw material.
- The workers loaded the blast furnace with coke and ore.
- (intransitive) To be put into use in an apparatus.
- The cartridge was designed to load easily.
- (transitive, computing) To read (data or a program) from a storage medium into computer memory.
- Click OK to load the selected data.
- (intransitive, computing) To transfer from a storage medium into computer memory.
- This program takes an age to load.
- (transitive, baseball) To put runners on first, second and third bases
- He walks to load the bases.
- (transitive) 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.
- (transitive) To ask or adapt a question so that it will be more likely to be answered in a certain way.
- (transitive) 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.
- (transitive) To provide in abundance.
- He loaded his system with carbs before the marathon.
- He loaded carbs into his system before the marathon.
- (transitive) To weight (a cane, whip, etc.) with lead or similar.
- (transitive, archaic, slang) To adulterate or drug.
- to load wine
- (transitive, archaic) To magnetize.
- (Can we find and add a quotation of Prior to this entry?)
Derived terms
- See Category:English words derived from: load (verb)
Translations
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Derived terms
References
- Walter W. Skeat, An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language (2013), p. 345.
- "but lade is now usually replaced in the present and the past tense by load, a derivative from the noun load". Hans Kurath, George Oliver Curme, A grammar of the English language vol. 2 (1935), p. 262.