Wiktionary

load

English

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Etymology 1

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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

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Noun

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load (plural loads)

  1. A burden; a weight to be carried.
    I struggled up the hill with the heavy load in my rucksack.
  2. (figuratively) A worry or concern to be endured, especially in the phrase a load off one's mind.
  3. 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.
  4. A quantity of washing put into a washing machine for a wash cycle.
    Synonym: washload
    I put a load on before we left.
  5. (in combination) Used to form nouns that indicate a large quantity, often corresponding to the capacity of a vehicle
  6. (often in the plural, colloquial) A large number or amount.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:lot
    I got loads of presents for my birthday!
    I got a load of emails about that.
  7. The volume of work required to be performed.
    Will our web servers be able to cope with that load?
  8. (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.
  9. (electrical engineering) The electrical current or power delivered by a device.
    I'm worried that the load on that transformer will be too high.
  10. (engineering) A resistive force encountered by a prime mover when performing work.
  11. (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.
  12. A unit of measure for various quantities.
    • 1866, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, volume 1, page 172:
      If this load equals its modern representative, it contains 18 cwt. of dry, 19 of new hay.
  13. The viral load
  14. A very small explosive inserted as a gag into a cigarette or cigar.
  15. The charge of powder for a firearm.
  16. (obsolete) Weight or violence of blows.
    • 1667, John Milton, “(please specify the page number)”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
      Far heavier load thyself expect to feel
      From my prevailing arm
  17. (vulgar, slang) defecation
  18. (vulgar, slang) The contents (e.g. semen) of an ejaculation.
    • 2006, John Patrick, Barely Legal, page 129:
      Already, Robbie had dumped a load into his dad, and now, before my very eyes, was Alan's own cock lube seeping out of Robbie's crinkled but fleshy sphincter.
    • 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.
  19. (euphemistic) Nonsense; rubbish.
    What a load!
  20. (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.
    • 2009, Daniel Page, A Practical Introduction to Computer Architecture, page 614:
      This description represents a form of delay slot: the load operation takes some time to complete, say n cycles. Thus, the value loaded only becomes valid n cycles after the load seems to have executed and can therefore only be read after then.
  21. (Philippines) prepaid phone credit
Synonyms
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Hyponyms
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  • (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
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Terms derived from load (noun)
Translations
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Verb

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load (third-person singular simple present loads, present participle loading, simple past loaded, past participle loaded or (archaic) loaden)

  1. (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.
  2. (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.
  3. (intransitive) To put a load on something.
    The truck was supposed to leave at dawn, but in fact we spent all morning loading.
  4. (intransitive) To receive a load.
    The truck is designed to load easily.
  5. (intransitive) To be placed into storage or conveyance.
    The containers load quickly and easily.
  6. (transitive) To fill (a firearm or artillery) with munition.
    I pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. I had forgotten to load the gun.
  7. (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.
  8. (transitive) To fill (an apparatus) with raw material.
    The workers loaded the blast furnace with coke and ore.
  9. (intransitive) To be put into use in an apparatus.
    The cartridge was designed to load easily.
  10. (transitive, computing) To read (data or a program) from a storage medium into computer memory.
    Click OK to load the selected data.
  11. (intransitive, computing) To transfer from a storage medium into computer memory.
    This program takes an age to load.
  12. (transitive, baseball) To put runners on first, second and third bases
    He walks to load the bases.
  13. (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.
  14. (transitive) To ask or adapt a question so that it will be more likely to be answered in a certain way.
  15. (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.
  16. (transitive) To provide in abundance.
    He loaded his system with carbs before the marathon.
    He loaded carbs into his system before the marathon.
  17. (transitive) To weight (a cane, whip, etc.) with lead or similar.
  18. (transitive, archaic, slang) To adulterate or drug.
    to load wine
  19. (transitive, archaic) To magnetize.
    • 1877, Charles A. Schott, Notes on Measurements of Terre Arial Magnetism:
      one oscillation of the loaded magnet,
  20. (Philippines) to top up or purchase phone credits
Derived terms
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Translations
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Etymology 2

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Acronym of living online all day.

Noun

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load (plural loads)

  1. (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!

References

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  1. ^ Walter W. Skeat, An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language (2013), p. 345.
  2. ^ "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.

Anagrams

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Cebuano

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Etymology

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Borrowed from English load.

Noun

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load

  1. prepaid phone credit

Verb

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load

  1. to top up or purchase phone credits

Chinese

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FWOTD – 17 August 2023

Etymology

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From English load.

Pronunciation

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Verb

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load (Hong Kong Cantonese)

  1. (computing) to load (a webpage or an application)
  2. 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”)
  3. (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.
  4. (figuratively, of text or images) to appear; to display

Quotations

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Estonian

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Noun

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load

  1. nominative plural of luba

Spanish

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Verb

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load

  1. second-person plural imperative of loar
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