load
Part of speech: verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: ball-games
baseball
computing
engineering
games
hobbies
lifestyle
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
sports
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.
Inflected forms:
form: loads
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: loading
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: loaded
pos: verb
tags: past
form: loaded
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: loaden
pos: verb
tags: archaic
participle
past
Senses:
gloss: To put a load on or in (a means of conveyance or a place of storage).
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: The dock workers refused to load the ship.
gloss: To place in or on a conveyance or a place of storage.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: The longshoremen loaded the cargo quickly.
He loaded his stuff into his storage locker.
gloss: To put a load on something.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: The truck was supposed to leave at dawn, but in fact we spent all morning loading.
gloss: To receive a load.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: The truck is designed to load easily.
[I]n his Paroxyſms, as he vvalked the Streets, he vvould have his Pockets loaden vvith Stones, to pelt at the Signs.
gloss: To be placed into storage or conveyance.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: The containers load quickly and easily.
gloss: To fill (a firearm or artillery) with munition.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: I pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. I had forgotten to load the gun.
gloss: 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.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: 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.
gloss: To fill (an apparatus) with raw material.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: The workers loaded the blast furnace with coke and ore.
gloss: To be put into use in an apparatus.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: The cartridge was designed to load easily.
gloss: To read (data or a program) from a storage medium into computer memory.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: Click OK to load the selected data.
gloss: To transfer from a storage medium into computer memory.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: The file took ten minutes to load.
This program takes an age to load.
gloss: To put runners on first, second and third bases
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: He walks to load the bases.
gloss: To tamper with so as to produce a biased outcome.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: 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.
gloss: To ask or adapt a question so that it will be more likely to be answered in a certain way.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
gloss: To encumber with something negative, to place as an encumbrance.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: The new owners had loaded the company with debt.
The new owners loaded debt on the company.
gloss: To provide in abundance.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: He loaded his system with carbs before the marathon.
He loaded carbs into his system before the marathon.
gloss: To weight (a cane, whip, etc.) with lead or similar.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
gloss: To adulterate or drug.
pos: verb
tags: archaic
slang
transitive
examples: to load wine
gloss: To magnetize.
pos: verb
tags: archaic
transitive
examples: one oscillation of the loaded magnet,
gloss: to top up or purchase phone credits
pos: verb
tags: Philippines
Derived words: autoload
carbo-load
deload
gut load
loadability
loadable
load-and-go
loader
load out
load up
load up on
lock and load
misload
preload
quickload
reload
underload
unload
Translations: