Other forms: unloading, unloaded, unloads
To unload is to take a cargo off a vehicle. Unload the van, unload the dishwasher, unload on somebody.
It covers everything from a lorry to a washing machine. Figuratively, to unload on somebody is to pour out your troubles at them, and in finance to unload shares is to sell a holding you want rid of, usually quickly and quietly.
1verbunloadTo take a cargo off a vehicle.
“We unloaded the boxes from the van and carried them upstairs.”
unload is a removing.
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
load
English, today
unload
From un- + load. 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