load
/loʊd/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.58 in modern English
5
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A certain number of articles or quantity of material that can be transported or processed at one time.
Example Sentences
- "I struggled up the hill with the heavy load in my rucksack."
- "Our life's a load."
- "I came here with a load and it feels so much lighter, now I’ve met you."
- "The truck overturned while carrying a full load of oil."
- "She put another load of clothes in the washing machine."
- "I put a load on before we left."
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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /loʊd/
- British English: /ləʊd/