Noun

Singular load

Plural loads

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. (often in plural) (colloquial) A large number or amount.

   I got loads of presents for my birthday!

   I got a load of emails about that.

5. The volume of work required to be performed.

   Will our web servers be able to cope with that load?

6. (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.

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

   I'm worried that the load on that transformer will be too high.

8. (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.

9. A unit of measure, often equivalent to the capacity of a waggon, but later becoming more specific measures of weight.

   Quotations

   • 1866: If this load equals its modern representative, it contains 18 cwt. of dry, 19 of new hay. — James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, Volume 1, p. 172.

10. A very small explosive inserted as a gag into a cigarette or cigar.
11. (slang, sometimes extremely vulgar) A slang term for semen.

    Yeah, she was suckin' on me and I blew my load right in her face.

Synonyms

• (A burden; a weight to be carried): charge, freight

Load may refer to:

• Structural load, forces which are applied to a structure
• Cargo, Freight, or Lading
• The load of a mutual fund (see Mutual fund fees and expenses)
• The genetic load of a population
• The parasite load of an organism
• Load Records, an American experimental independent record label
• Load (album), the 6th album released by the band Metallica
• Loads, A 1995 compilation of the British pop group Happy Mondays
• Electrical load, a device connected to the output of a circuit
• Electronic load, a simulated electrical load used for testing purposes
• Load (computing), a measure of how much processing a computer performs