load

English Online Dictionary. What means load‎? What does load mean?

English

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.

For the meaning development from PIE, compare Latin carrus (whence carry) akin to currō.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /loʊd/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ləʊd/
  • Homophones: lode, lowed
• Rhymes: -əʊd

Noun

load (plural loads)

1. A burden; a weight to be carried.

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.

4. A quantity of washing put into a washing machine for a wash cycle.

   Synonym: washload

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

7. The volume of work required to be performed.

8. (engineering) The force exerted on a structural component such as a beam, girder, cable etc.

9. (electrical engineering) The electrical current or power delivered by a device.

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.

12. A unit of measure for various quantities.
13. Short for 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.
17. (vulgar, slang) defecation
18. (vulgar, slang) The contents (e.g. semen) of an ejaculation.
19. (euphemistic) Nonsense; rubbish.

20. (computing) The process of loading something, i.e. transferring it into memory or over a network, etc.
21. (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)

1. (transitive) To put a load on or in (a means of conveyance or a place of storage).

2. (transitive) To place in or on a conveyance or a place of storage.

3. (intransitive) To put a load on something.

4. (intransitive) To receive a load.
5. (intransitive) To be placed into storage or conveyance.

6. (transitive) To fill (a firearm or artillery) with munition.

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.

8. (transitive) To fill (an apparatus) with raw material.

9. (intransitive) To be put into use in an apparatus.

10. (transitive, computing) To read (data or a program) from a storage medium into computer memory.

11. (intransitive, computing) To transfer from a storage medium into computer memory.

12. (transitive, baseball) To put runners on first, second and third bases

13. (transitive) To tamper with so as to produce a biased outcome.

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.

16. (transitive) To provide in abundance.

17. (transitive) To weight (a cane, whip, etc.) with lead or similar.
18. (transitive, archaic, slang) To adulterate or drug.

19. (transitive, archaic) To magnetize.
20. (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)

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.

References

Anagrams

• LADO, odal, alod, -adol-, -adol, Aldo

Cebuano

Etymology

Borrowed from English load.

Noun

load

1. prepaid phone credit

Verb

load

1. to top up or purchase phone credits

Chinese

Etymology

From English load.

Pronunciation

Verb

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

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:load.

Related terms

• hang機／hang机, 熄機／熄机

Estonian

Noun

load

1. nominative plural of luba

Spanish

Verb

load

1. second-person plural imperative of loar