things, goods, or weight that a person, animal, or vehicle is carrying at one time
The donkey struggled under the heavy load of firewood.
We put the whole load of groceries in the car trunk.
✦ Old English lād “way, journey, carrying,” later “that which is carried,” related to lead (verb) in the sense of ‘cause to go.’
a large amount of work, tasks, or responsibility someone has to deal with
Our teacher gave us a huge load of homework for the weekend.
Managing three projects at once put a heavy load on him.
to put things or people onto a vehicle, container, or device so they can be moved or used
Workers loaded the boxes onto the ship before sunrise.
Please load the dishwasher after dinner.
(computing) to move data, a program, or a web page into a computer’s memory so it can run or be viewed
It takes only seconds to load the game on this new console.
The website failed to load because of the weak signal.
to copy data or a file from the internet or another computer to your own device
Sam clicked the link to download the latest game update.
Make sure you only download apps from trusted sources.
✦ Blend of down (directional prefix implying towards the user) + load (put data into a system); popularized in computing in the 1970s.
