Loaded

How to spell loaded

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce loaded

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does loaded mean?

1. verbPast tense of load: placed a quantity of goods, fuel, or data into or onto something.
2. adjectiveInformal term meaning extremely rich.
3. adjectiveCarrying a hidden bias or extra meaning designed to influence the outcome.

Loaded in a sentence

• verb

  The movers loaded the van with our furniture before noon.

• adjective

  After selling the company he was completely loaded and retired early.

• adjective

  The survey contained several loaded questions that pushed people toward one answer.

• verb

  She loaded the new software onto every machine in the office.

• adjective

  Their neighbours are clearly loaded, judging by the cars in the drive.

• adjective

  His remark was loaded with criticism, even though it sounded polite.

Where does loaded come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows from the verb 'load', which traces back to the Old English noun 'lad', meaning a way, a course, or a journey, and the carrying that a journey involved. That same ancestor lies behind the modern word 'lode' (a vein of ore) and is a close cousin of 'lead' in the sense of guiding along a path. Over the medieval period the idea drifted from the act of conveying goods to the goods themselves, so 'load' came to mean the burden being carried, and the verb 'to load' meant to place a burden onto something. The form 'loaded' is simply 'load' plus the regular '-ed' ending, used both as a past tense and as an adjective meaning weighed down or filled. By the nineteenth century playful slang had stretched it further, so 'loaded' could describe a person stuffed with money or a question secretly weighted to trap the listener. The spelling keeps the silent 'a' of the original 'lad', which is the small trap, since the word is pronounced as if it were simply 'lode-ed'.

How the word is built

• load (Old English lad: way, carrying)
• -ed (past tense / adjective suffix)