Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Burden   /bˈərdən/   Listen
noun
Burden  n.  (Written also burthen)  
1.
That which is borne or carried; a load. "Plants with goodly burden bowing."
2.
That which is borne with labor or difficulty; that which is grievous, wearisome, or oppressive. "Deaf, giddy, helpless, left alone, To all my friends a burden grown."
3.
The capacity of a vessel, or the weight of cargo that she will carry; as, a ship of a hundred tons burden.
4.
(Mining) The tops or heads of stream-work which lie over the stream of tin.
5.
(Metal.) The proportion of ore and flux to fuel, in the charge of a blast furnace.
6.
A fixed quantity of certain commodities; as, a burden of gad steel, 120 pounds.
7.
A birth. (Obs. & R.)
Beast of burden, an animal employed in carrying burdens.
Burden of proof (Law), the duty of proving a particular position in a court of law, a failure in the performance of which duty calls for judgment against the party on whom the duty is imposed.
Synonyms: Burden, Load. A burden is, in the literal sense, a weight to be borne; a load is something laid upon us to be carried. Hence, when used figuratively, there is usually a difference between the two words. Our burdens may be of such a nature that we feel bound to bear them cheerfully or without complaint. They may arise from the nature of our situation; they may be allotments of Providence; they may be the consequences of our errors. What is upon us, as a load, we commonly carry with greater reluctance or sense of oppression. Men often find the charge of their own families to be a burden; but if to this be added a load of care for others, the pressure is usually serve and irksome.



Burden  n.  
1.
The verse repeated in a song, or the return of the theme at the end of each stanza; the chorus; refrain. Hence: That which is often repeated or which is dwelt upon; the main topic; as, the burden of a prayer. "I would sing my song without a burden."
2.
The drone of a bagpipe.



Burden  n.  A club. (Obs.)



Burdon  n.  (Written also burden)  A pilgrim's staff.



verb
Burden  v. t.  (past & past part. burdened; pres. part. burdening)  
1.
To encumber with weight (literal or figurative); to lay a heavy load upon; to load. "I mean not that other men be eased, and ye burdened."
2.
To oppress with anything grievous or trying; to overload; as, to burden a nation with taxes. "My burdened heart would break."
3.
To impose, as a load or burden; to lay or place as a burden (something heavy or objectionable). (R.) "It is absurd to burden this act on Cromwell."
Synonyms: To load; encumber; overload; oppress.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Burden" Quotes from Famous Books



... showed as a grey box, huddled against evergreens. There was no mystery about it. You saw it for miles. Its hill had none of the beetling romance of Devonshire, none of the subtle contours that prelude a cottage in Kent, but profferred its burden crudely, on a huge bare palm. "There's Cadover," visitors would say. "How small it still looks. We shall be late for lunch." And the view from the windows, though extensive, would not have been accepted by the Royal Academy. A valley, containing a stream, a road, a railway; over ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster

... sex; and scruples of female delicacy interfere for ever to unnerve and emasculate in their hands the sceptre however otherwise potent. Hence we see, in noble families, the merest boys put forward to represent the family dignity, as fitter supporters of that burden than their mature mothers. And of Caesar's mother, though little is recorded, and that little incidentally, this much at least we learn—that, if she looked down upon him with maternal pride and delight, she looked up to him with female ambition as the re-edifier of ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar

... and M. Mizon during their first voyage was 2,900 lb., and the wagons weighed 5,000 lb. Hence the expedition had to carry a supplementary weight of 31/2 tons; but at any given moment the material forming this burden became the means of transporting, in its turn, seven boats, representing a total weight ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various

... us in the church have no power given them of Christ which is not for edifying, Eph. iv. 12. The counsel of the apostles and elders at Jerusalem (which is a lively pattern of a lawful synod to the world's end) professed they would lay no other burden upon the disciples except such things as the law of charity made necessary for shunning of scandal, Acts xv. 28; and so that which they decreed had force and strength to bind a charitate propter scandalum, saith Sanctius;(1197) but suo arbitratu they ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... had passed between them then, but later, through the medium of his host, he had sought her out, and called upon her. Within a week he had asked her to be his wife. And Nan Everard, impulsive, dazzled by the prospect of unbounded wealth, and feverishly eager to ease the family burden, had accepted him. ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell


More quotes...



Copyright © 2025 Dictionary One.com