Load-bearing means carrying the weight of what is above it. Take it out and the ceiling comes down.
It is a building term and a serious one, since knocking through a load-bearing wall without a steel beam in its place is how houses fall down, and building regulations exist largely because of it. A structural engineer decides which walls are which. The phrase has become a popular metaphor for the one part of an argument holding everything else up, and load-bearing word is now a real piece of internet criticism.
1adjectiveload-bearingSupporting the weight of a structure above.
“Check whether that partition is load-bearing before you touch it.”
Practised in A Man Called Ove, Buildings & Architecture
First appears in chapter 10 of A Man Called Ove.
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