burden

SayBUR-duhn/ˈbɝdn̩/UK/ˈbɜːdn̩/

Pluralburdens

Verbburdens, burdening, burdened

13 meanings of burden

Practice

1
nouncountable
A duty, responsibility, or difficulty that is hard to bear and causes worry, hardship, or strain.
The constant criticism became a burden she could no longer endure.
Years of secrecy weighed on him like an unbearable burden.
UsageCommon in a burden to someone, a burden on someone and ease the burden; often become a burden.
Similarweight, load, strain, responsibility, hardship
Note
The weight here can be a duty or an emotional strain, and often the burden is a person. Jonathan Swift's lament "To all my friends a burden grown" shows the usual construction, in which someone becomes a burden to others. A burden can be what you must do, or simply what wears you down: a care, a grief, an old friend grown helpless.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 1 fact
The quoted words express Jonathan Swift's lament about becoming a burden to his friends. gutenberg.org
2
heavy loadnouncountable
A heavy load carried by a person or animal.
The porters hauled their burdens across the mountain pass.
He shifted the burden onto his other shoulder.
UsageUsually with carry or bear: carry a heavy burden.
Similarload, weight, pack
Note
In J. Meade Falkner's Moonfleet (1898) men are heard "carrying burdens".
3
verbtransitive
To load someone or something with a heavy weight, duty, or problem.
They burdened the new employee with tasks no one else wanted.
Heavy taxes burden families already struggling to pay rent.
UsageUsually burden someone with something; often passive, as in burdened with debt.
Similarsaddle, load, encumber, overload
Oppositerelieve, free
Note
The older spelling burthen survives in the King James Bible of 1611: "other men bee eased, and you burthened". Shakespeare's "my burdened heart" shows the past participle working as an adjective.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
The King James Bible was first published in 1611. wwwe.lib.cam.ac.uk
The archaic spelling burthen occurs in the quoted wording of 2 Corinthians 8:13 in the 1611 King James Bible. en.wiktionary.org
The phrase appears in Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 2, Act 3, scene 2, spoken by Suffolk; burdened modifies heart. folger.edu
4
amount in bodynouncountable
The total quantity of toxins, parasites, cancer cells, or similar harmful agents present in an organism.
The treatment significantly reduced the tumor burden in most patients.
Researchers measured the parasite burden in each infected host.
Similarload
Note
A clinician's measure of how much disease a body is carrying: tumor burden, parasite burden, plaque burden, toxin burden. The word usually follows a noun naming the agent. The amount is counted or estimated to judge how severe an illness is or whether treatment is working, so a falling burden is good news.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts
Medical burden can mean the quantity of toxins, parasites, cancer cells, or plaque present in an organism. en.wiktionary.org
Burden can be quantified by counting or indirect estimation. espen.afro.who.int
The quantity of harmful organisms can indicate illness severity, and reducing it can improve health. who.int
A decrease in cancer burden can indicate a response to treatment. cancer.gov

Less common meanings

5
main ideanoununcountable
The central theme or main point of a speech, argument, or piece of writing.
The burden of the report was that reform could no longer be delayed.
Throughout the sermon, the burden remained the same: forgiveness.
UsageUsually the burden of + an argument, report or speech.
Similargist, thrust, theme, substance, point
Note
Where a refrain is what a song keeps returning to, this is what an argument keeps returning to: its gist. "The burden of the argument" is its main point, not a weight it places on anyone, though the phrase can look like the "responsibility" meaning. If the phrase can be paraphrased as "what it chiefly says", this is the sense.
6
chorusnouncountable
The refrain of a ballad or folk song: a phrase or theme that comes back after every verse.
The ballad's burden was repeated by the audience after each stanza.
Old sea songs often carried a rolling burden the crew sang together.
Similarrefrain, chorus
Note
A different word that happens to share the spelling. This burden comes from Old French bordon, "drone", and has nothing to do with carrying. Edgar Allan Poe's The Philosophy of Composition (1846) pairs "the refrain, or burden". Shakespeare seems to play on both words in The Tempest, where the spirits "the burden bear", singing the refrain in words that also suggest carrying a load.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 6 facts
The musical noun has a separate etymology from burden meaning a load or something carried. en.wiktionary.org
The musical noun derives from Old French bordon, meaning drone, rather than from the verb meaning carry. en.wiktionary.org
Edgar Allan Poe wrote The Philosophy of Composition, published in 1846. eapoe.org
The Philosophy of Composition was first published in 1846. eapoe.org
Poe uses the exact phrase “the refrain, or burden” in the essay. eapoe.org
Shakespeare's The Tempest contains “the burden bear”, addressed to spirits in Ariel's song. gutenberg.org
7
ship capacitynoununcountable
The carrying capacity of a vessel, or the weight of cargo it can hold.
The merchant ship was rated at three hundred tons burden.
Shipbuilders recorded each vessel's burden in the register.
Similartonnage, capacity
Note
A shipping term with its own word order. The measure comes first and the noun follows without of: "a ship of a hundred tons burden", or the vessels "of from 40 to 300 tons burden" in Charles E. Lee's 1945 account of the Penrhyn quay. Read it as "tons of carrying capacity". It is the load sense measured for a hull, meaning what the ship can bear.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts
The example uses the wording “a ship of a hundred tons burden”. en.wiktionary.org
Charles E. Lee published his account in 1945. wrrc.org.uk
The quoted vessel description appears in Lee’s article. The note identifies its location, without explicitly claiming that Lee originated it. en.wiktionary.org
The quotation’s wording and its reference to Penrhyn Port are accurate. upload.wikimedia.org
8
nounobsolete
A birth; the act of bringing forth a child.
Note
An obsolete and rare sense that takes bear in its other meaning: what a mother bears is her burden, from the same root as the heavy load. "Bore thee at a burden two fair sons" describes twins, two sons at one birth. A modern reader would take the phrase to mean a load, so the sense belongs to reading older texts, not to new writing.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 5 facts
Burden has an obsolete, rare sense meaning a birth. en.wiktionary.org
The explanation connects childbearing with the same historical word that means a load. en.wiktionary.org
Bear can mean to give birth. en.wiktionary.org
The quoted words occur in the Abbess's speech to Egeon in The Comedy of Errors, describing two sons born together. folger.edu
The sons referred to are twins. folger.edu
9
nounarchaic
The continuous low drone sounded by a bagpipe beneath the melody.
BURDEN in some musical instruments, the Drone or Bass, and the pipe or string that plays it
1740, Sébastien de Brossard, James Grassineau
10
noun
A fixed quantity of certain commodities, used as a standard unit of measure.
11
noun
The ore and flux charged into a blast furnace with the fuel, or the proportion in which they are mixed with it.
12
noun
The upper layers, or heads, of a stream-work that lie over the bed of tin.
13
noun
In rock blasting, the distance from a row of blastholes to the free face of the excavation, or between successive rows, measured at right angles to that face.

Practice

Can you tell the meanings of burden apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.

Origins

Meanings 1–4, 7–8

This sense comes from Middle English burden (also burthen, byrthen), from Old English byrden, going back through Proto-Germanic to the Proto-Indo-European root *bʰer- meaning "to carry, bear."

Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 3 facts

Middle English had the form burden. gutenberg.org
Burthen and byrthen are Middle English variants of the same word. en.wiktionary.org
The word descends from Old English byrden through Proto-Germanic from Proto-Indo-European *bʰer-, meaning to carry or bear. en.wiktionary.org

Meanings 5–6

Medieval Latin burdō gave Old French bordon ("drone"), which became Middle English burdoun ("accompaniment"), the source of this sense. Bourdon is a doublet.