burdens

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of burden.

   The donkeys hauled their burdens slowly across the desert.

   Caregivers often shoulder financial and emotional burdens at the same time.

   Note

   The plural carries every sense of the singular, from literal heavy loads to the responsibilities and worries a person carries, and those figurative ones stack naturally: financial, emotional, family burdens. The same spelling is also the verb's present form, so context decides. In "she burdens her friends with her burdens," the first is something done and the second is something carried.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of burden.

   The new policy burdens local farmers with costly reporting requirements.

   Guilt burdens him whenever he recalls that broken promise.

   Note

   The verb is transitive, so this form always takes an object: something burdens someone, usually with a named load, as when a policy burdens farmers with paperwork. A second pattern turns that around and makes the object the load itself, laid on someone. The -s form goes with a singular subject, such as he, she, it or a singular noun. Plural subjects take the bare form, burden.

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