“loaden” is a form of
load
UK /ləʊd/ · US /loʊd/ noun, verb
Forms loads loading loaded loaden
- noun A burden; a weight to be carried. “I struggled up the hill with the heavy load in my rucksack.”
- noun (figuratively) A worry or concern to be endured, especially in the phrase a load off one's mind.
- noun 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.”
- noun A quantity of washing put into a washing machine for a wash cycle. “I put a load on before we left.”
- noun (in combination) Used to form nouns that indicate a large quantity, often corresponding to the capacity of a vehicle
- noun (often in the plural, colloquial) A large number or amount. “I got loads of presents for my birthday!”
- noun The volume of work required to be performed. “Will our web servers be able to cope with that load?”
- noun (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.”
- verb (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.”
- verb (transitive) To place in or on a conveyance or a place of storage. “The longshoremen loaded the cargo quickly.”
- verb (intransitive) To put a load on something. “The truck was supposed to leave at dawn, but in fact we spent all morning loading.”
- verb (intransitive) To receive a load. “The truck is designed to load easily.”
- verb (intransitive) To be placed into storage or conveyance. “The containers load quickly and easily.”
- verb (transitive) To fill (a firearm or artillery) with munition. “I pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. I had forgotten to load the gun.”
- verb (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.”
- verb (transitive) To fill (an apparatus) with raw material. “The workers loaded the blast furnace with coke and ore.”
- noun (Internet slang, obsolete) 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!”
Synonyms
charge freight washload abundance battalion arseload assload bellyload boatload brimful busload bucketful bucketload butt-ton bumload buttload cartload crapflood crapload deal loading burden cargo lading payload shipment consignment encumbrance incumbrance onus
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),
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.
Acronym of living online all day.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A burden; that which is laid on or put in anything for conveyance; that which is borne or sustained; a weight; as, a heavy load.
- noun The quantity which can be carried or drawn in some specified way; the contents of a cart, barrow, or vessel; that which will constitute a cargo; lading.
- verb To lay a load or burden on or in, as on a horse or in a cart; to charge with a load, as a gun; to furnish with a lading or cargo, as a ship; hence, to add weight to, so as to oppress or embarrass; to heap upon.
- verb To adulterate or drug; as, to load wine. [Cant]
Etymology [OE. lode load, way; properly the same word as lode, but confused with lade, load, v. See Lade, Lead, v., Lode.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “load”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details