Noun: burden
| Singular | burden |
| Plural | burdens |
Sample Sentences
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I know that this was Life,—the track
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Whereon with equal feet we fared;
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And then, as now, the day prepared
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The daily burden for the back. [1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XXV”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 42:]
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There were four or five men in the vault already, and I could hear more coming down the passage, and guessed from their heavy footsteps that they were carrying burdens. [[1898], J[ohn] Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, London; Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934, →OCLC:]
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c. 1710-1730, Jonathan Swift, The Dean's Complaint Translated and Answered
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Deaf, giddy, helpless, left alone, / To all my friends a burden grown.
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a ship of a hundred tons burden
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"[…] The quay is upwards of 1,000 feet in length, and capable of accommodating more than 100 sail of traders; and there are generally a considerable number of vessels of from 40 to 300 tons burden, from various parts of the world, waiting to receive their cargoes." [1945 May and June, Charles E. Lee, “The Penrhyn Railway and its Locomotives—1”, in Railway Magazine, page 142, text published 1848:]
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A burden of gad steel is 120 pounds.
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… that bore thee at a burden two fair sons.
Nouns inflected like burden
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English birthene, birthen, birden, from Old English byrden, byrþen, from Proto-West Germanic *burþini, from *burþī, from Proto-Germanic *burþį̄, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰer- (“to carry, bear”). See: Middle English Nouns '
birthene', Middle English Nouns '
birthene', Old English Nouns '
byrden'.
Verbs referencing "burden"
Norwegian Nynorsk Nouns
bør.