burden

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Something that is carried.
2. n. Something that is emotionally difficult to bear.
3. n. A source of great worry or stress; weight: The burden of economic sacrifice rests on the workers of the plant.
4. n. A responsibility or duty: The burden of organizing the campaign fell to me.
5. n. Nautical The amount of cargo that a vessel can carry.
6. n. Nautical The weight of the cargo carried by a vessel at one time.
7. n. The amount of a disease-causing entity present in an organism.
8. v. To weigh down; oppress.
9. v. To load or overload.
10. n. A principal or recurring idea; a theme: "The burden of what he said was to defend enthusiastically the conservative aristocracy” ( J.A. Froude). See Synonyms at substance.
11. n. Music The chorus or refrain of a composition, especially of a 15th-century carol.
12. n. Music A drone, as of a bagpipe or pedal point.
13. n. Archaic Music The bass accompaniment to a song.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. That which is borne or carried; a load.
2. n. Hence That which is borne with labor or difficulty; that which is grievous, wearisome, or oppressive; also, an incumbrance of any kind.
3. n. In England, a quantity of certain commodities: as, a burden of gad-steel (that is, 120 or 180 pounds).
4. n. The capacity of a ship; the quantity or number of tons of freight a vessel will carry: as, a ship of 600 tons burden.
5. n. In mining, the tops or heads of stream-work, overlying the stream of tin, and needing to be first cleansed.
6. n. The charge of a blast-furnace.
7. To load; lay a heavy load on; encumber with weight.
8. Hence Figuratively, to load; oppress with anything which is borne with difficulty or trouble; surcharge: as, to burden a nation with taxes; to burden the memory with details.
9. To lay or impose upon one, as a load, burden, or charge.
10. n. The act of bearing children; a birth.
11. n. The bass in music.
12. n. In music: The refrain or recurring chorus at the end of the stanzas of a ballad or song; a refrain.
13. n. The drone of a bagpipe. The song to which a dance is danced when there are no instruments.
14. n. That which is often repeated; a subject on which one dwells; the main topic: as, this subject was the burden of all his talk.
15. n. A club.

Wiktionary

1. n. A heavy load.
2. n. A responsibility, onus.
3. n. A cause of worry.
4. n. music A phrase or theme that recurs at the end of each verse in a folk song or ballad; the drone of a bagpipe.
5. n. obsolete Theme, core idea.
6. v. transitive To encumber with a burden (in any of the noun senses of the word).
7. n. obsolete A club (weapon).

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. That which is borne or carried; a load.
2. n. That which is borne with labor or difficulty; that which is grievous, wearisome, or oppressive.
3. n. The capacity of a vessel, or the weight of cargo that she will carry.
4. n. (Mining) The tops or heads of stream-work which lie over the stream of tin.
5. n. (Metal.) The proportion of ore and flux to fuel, in the charge of a blast furnace.
6. n. A fixed quantity of certain commodities.
7. n. Obs. & R. A birth.
8. v. To encumber with weight (literal or figurative); to lay a heavy load upon; to load.
9. v. To oppress with anything grievous or trying; to overload.
10. v. rare To impose, as a load or burden; to lay or place as a burden (something heavy or objectionable).
11. n. 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.
12. n. The drone of a bagpipe.
13. n. obsolete A club.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. weight down with a load
2. n. an onerous or difficult concern
3. n. the central idea that is expanded in a document or discourse
4. n. the central meaning or theme of a speech or literary work
5. n. weight to be borne or conveyed
6. v. impose a task upon, assign a responsibility to