Noun

1. A burden; a weight to be carried.

   I struggled up the hill with the heavy load in my rucksack.

2. A worry or concern to be endured, especially in the phrase a load off one's mind.
3. A certain number of articles or quantity of material that can be transported or processed at one time.

   The truck overturned while carrying a full load of oil.

   She put another load of clothes in the washing machine.

4. (colloquial) A large number or amount.

   I got loads of presents for my birthday!

   I got a load of emails about that.

5. The volume of work required to be performed.

   Will our web servers be able to cope with that load?

6. The force exerted on a structural component such as a beam, girder, cable etc.

   Each of the cross-members must withstand a tensile load of 1,000 newtons.

7. The electrical current or power delivered by a device.

   I'm worried that the load on that transformer will be too high.

8. Any component that draws current or power from an electrical circuit.

   Connect a second 24 ohm load across the power supply's output terminals.

9. A unit of measure, often equivalent to the capacity of a waggon, but later becoming more specific measures of weight.
   • 1866, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, Volume 1, p. 172:

     If this load equals its modern representative, it contains 18 cwt. of dry, 19 of new hay.

10. A very small explosive inserted as a gag into a cigarette or cigar.
11. A slang term for semen.

    Yeah, she was suckin' on me and I blew my load right in her face.

Verb

1. To put a load on (something).

   The dock workers refused to load the cargo onto the ship.

   The truck was supposed to leave at dawn, but in fact we spent all morning loading.

2. To fill (a firearm or artillery) with munition.

   I pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. I had forgotten to load the gun.

3. To insert (an item or items) into an apparatus so as to ready it for operation, such as a reel of film into a camera, sheets of paper into a printer etc.

   Now that you've loaded the film you're ready to start shooting.

4. (computing) To read (data or a program) from a storage medium into computer memory.

   Click OK to load the selected data.

5. (computing) To transfer from a storage medium into computer memory.

   This program takes an age to load.

6. To fill the bases with runners

   He walks to load the bases.

7. To tamper with so as to produce a biased outcome. Often used figuratively, to indicate the gaining of an advantage.

   You can load the dice in your favour by researching the company before your interview.

   The wording of the ballot paper loaded the vote in favour of the Conservative candidate.

8. To ask or adapt a question so that it will be more likely to be answered in a certain way.