Definitions and meaning of load
load
Etymology 1
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.
Pronunciation
- (General American) IPA(key): /loʊd/
-
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ləʊd/
- Rhymes: -əʊd
Noun
load (plural loads)
- A burden; a weight to be carried.
- (figuratively) A worry or concern to be endured, especially in the phrase a load off one's mind.
- A certain number of articles or quantity of material that can be transported or processed at one time.
- A quantity of washing put into a washing machine for a wash cycle.
- Synonym: washload
- (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.
- Synonyms: see Thesaurus:lot
- The volume of work required to be performed.
- (engineering) The force exerted on a structural component such as a beam, girder, cable etc.
- (electrical engineering) The electrical current or power delivered by a device.
- (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.
- A unit of measure for various quantities.
- The viral load
- 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.
- (vulgar, slang) The contents (e.g. semen) of an ejaculation.
- (euphemistic) Nonsense; rubbish.
- (computing) The process of loading something, i.e. transferring it into memory or over a network, etc.
- (Philippines) prepaid phone credit
Synonyms
- (unspecific heavy weight to be carried): charge, freight
- (unit of lead): fodder, fother, cartload, carrus, charrus
- (the contents of one's ejaculation): cumwad, wad
Hyponyms
- (1⁄12 cartload of wool & for smaller divisions): wey
- (1⁄30 cartload of lead & for smaller divisions): fotmal
- (1⁄36 cartload of straw or hay & for smaller divisions): truss
Derived terms
Translations
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).
- (transitive) To place in or on a conveyance or a place of storage.
- (intransitive) To put a load on something.
- (intransitive) To receive a load.
- (intransitive) To be placed into storage or conveyance.
- (transitive) To fill (a firearm or artillery) with munition.
- (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.
- (transitive) To fill (an apparatus) with raw material.
- (intransitive) To be put into use in an apparatus.
- (transitive, computing) To read (data or a program) from a storage medium into computer memory.
- (intransitive, computing) To transfer from a storage medium into computer memory.
- (transitive, baseball) To put runners on first, second and third bases
- (transitive) To tamper with so as to produce a biased outcome.
- (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.
- (transitive) To provide in abundance.
- (transitive) To weight (a cane, whip, etc.) with lead or similar.
- (transitive, archaic, slang) To adulterate or drug.
- (transitive, archaic) To magnetize.
- (Philippines) to top up or purchase phone credits
Derived terms
- See Category:English words derived from: load (verb)
Translations
Etymology 2
Acronym of living online all day.
Noun
load (plural loads)
- (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.
References
Anagrams
- -adol, -adol-, Aldo, alod, odal
Cebuano
Etymology
Borrowed from English load.
Noun
load
- prepaid phone credit
Verb
load
- to top up or purchase phone credits
Chinese
Etymology
From English load.
Pronunciation
Verb
load (Hong Kong Cantonese)
- (computing) to load (a webpage or an application)
- to receive mobile data; to connect to the Internet
- load空氣／load空气 [Cantonese] ― lou1 hung1 hei3 [Jyutping] ― to have a very poor Internet connection (literally, “to be loading air”)
- (figuratively) to comprehend; to think about; to ponder; to understand
我load咗好耐先明佢講緊啲咩。 [Cantonese, trad.]
我load咗好耐先明佢讲紧啲咩。 [Cantonese, simp.]- ngo5 lou1 zo2 hou2 noi6 sin1 ming4 keoi5 gong2 gan2 di1 me1. [Jyutping]
- I pondered for a very long time before realising what he was talking about.
- (figuratively, of text or images) to appear; to display
Quotations
- For quotations using this term, see Citations:load.
Related terms
Estonian
Noun
load
- nominative plural of luba
Spanish
Verb
load
- second-person plural imperative of loar
Source: wiktionary.org