Other forms: loaded, loading, loads
A load is what is carried, or the weight of it. A heavy load, a load of bricks, take the load off.
In engineering, load is the force a structure must carry and everything is designed around it — dead load is the structure's own weight and live load is everything else. A load of, in British informal use, means a lot: a load of nonsense. Note that the Old English word meant a way or journey.
1nounloadWhat is carried, or the weight of it.
“The lorry was carrying a heavy load of bricks.”
2verbputTo put a load onto something.
“We loaded the van with boxes and drove to the new flat.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
load is a burden.
Old English lad meant a way or journey, and the sense of burden developed in Middle English. Lode and lead are relatives.
Proto-Indo-European
*leyt- — to go, go forth, die
Proto-Germanic
*laidō — leading, way
Old English
lād — course, journey; way, street, waterway; leading, carrying; maintenance, support
Middle English
lode
English, today
load
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 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),
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA