burdened

1. 1
   adjective

   Weighed down by a heavy load or by too many worries, duties, or obligations.

   Like a pack animal loaded with more sacks than it can comfortably carry.

   Burdened with debt, the family had to sell their car.

   The committee felt burdened by impossible expectations from every department.

   Similarsaddled, laden, encumbered, loaded, overwhelmed

   Oppositeunencumbered, carefree, free

   Note

   The adjective shows itself by being gradable. People feel burdened, very burdened, or more burdened than before, and its comparative and superlative are formed with more and most. That is the easiest way to tell it from the verb form: "she felt very burdened" describes a state, while "the costs burdened her" reports an action. The weight is usually introduced with by or with, as in burdened by modesty or burdened with debt.

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of burden.

   The reforms burdened taxpayers with unexpected costs.

   Years of conflict had burdened the region with crushing debt.

   Note

   One spelling serves both the simple past (the reforms burdened taxpayers) and the participle after have or in the passive (taxpayers were burdened), because burden forms its past regularly. The verb is transitive and takes two kinds of object. Usually the object is the person weighed down, as in burdened with costs. Sometimes it is the load itself, laid on someone as a burden. Once very or more can stand before it, it has become the adjective.

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