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Etymology and origin of the English word lade

Pronunciation

lade1 to load; to draw water

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
Beowulf
Inherited from
Old English hladan via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Proto-Germanic *hlaþaną

Etymology

The word for loading is inherited from Middle English laden,[2][3][4] inherited from Old English hladan (“to heap, pile up, load; to draw water”),[5][6][3] with past tense hlōd and past participle hladen,[2][7] from Proto-Germanic *hlaþaną.[8] It corresponds to Old Frisian hlada, Old Saxon hladan, Old High German hladan, Old Norse hlaða, Dutch laden, German laden and Gothic 𐌰𐍆𐌷𐌻𐌰𐌸𐌰𐌽 (afhlaþan).[9][6][10][11] Watkins, Barnhart and Klein take it back to Proto-Indo-European *klā- (“to spread out, pile up”),[6][12][10] with Lithuanian klóti (“to spread”) and a Slavic verb for "to place" as relatives,[6][10][9] though Köbler also considers another root.[8] The Old English verb is also the source of ladle, and it is related to last, the measure of weight.[13][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

To load a ship with cargo: in Beowulf, dated about 725 by Barnhart.[9][12] To draw water: in the Lindisfarne Gospels, John 4:7.[9]

Semantic evolution

The two branches both go back to Old English.[9][5] Loading is the general Germanic sense; drawing water is peculiar to English,[9][6] though Old Saxon has "to put liquor into a vessel", a special use of the idea of placing a load.[9] The verb has been weak in the past tense since the 15th century; the strong participle laden stayed with the load senses, while the water senses now always take laded.[9][7] Johnson (1755) already noted that the verb was commonly written load,[14] which is now the main verb, leaving lade to the loading of ships.[6] Laden lasted longer but, except in some phrases, gave way to loaded in the 20th century.[6] In dialect the verb stayed in general use in Scotland and England, with forms such as laad and leead.[15] An obsolete noun lade, a draught or a load, is recorded from Old English to 1503.[9]

Timeline

  • Old English – to load a ship or vehicle, in Beowulf; to draw water, in the Lindisfarne Gospels.[9]
  • c. 1200 – Middle English laden, to draw water, in the Ormulum.[12]
  • c. 1250 – Middle English laden, to load.[12]
  • 1412–20 – of a ship, to let in water, in Lydgate (until 1530).[9]
  • 1481 – to load a person with gifts or a tree with fruit, in Caxton.[9]
  • before 1538 – to weigh down, chiefly with something immaterial.[9]
  • 1595 – laden as an adjective, burdened, loaded.[12]
  • 1633 – to load a gun (until 1690).[9]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To put cargo on board a ship or other vehicle, or (of a ship) to take cargo on: The barge laded coal at the wharf.[16][3][9]
  2. To burden or weigh down, now usually as laden: laden with guilt.[16][9]
  3. To fill or supply abundantly, now usually as laden: branches laden with plums.[16][9]
  4. To scoop or draw up a liquid, as with a ladle; to bale.[16][9][7]
  5. (obsolete, 1633–90) To load a gun.[9][7]
  6. (obsolete, 1412–1530) Of a ship, to let in water.[9][7]

Word family

  • laden
  • lading
  • lader
  • unlade
  • overlade

lade2 watercourse, mill-race

Confidence
Disputed
Formation
Inherited
First attested
c. 1300 Cursor Mundi
Inherited from
Old English lad via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Old English lād

Etymology

The word for the watercourse is inherited from Middle English lade, inherited from Old English lād (“course, way, watercourse”), according to Merriam-Webster Unabridged, Weekley and Wright's dialect dictionary,[3][17][15] which makes it one word with lode,[3][9] from Proto-Germanic *laidō.[18] Weekley calls it cognate with lead and leat.[17] The OED disagrees: it takes the mill-race sense as apparently a variant of the noun lead, which has that sense much earlier, perhaps confused with lade, the Scots and northern form of lode, and it denies any link with leat.[9][7] It holds that the sense "channel, mouth of a river" was extracted by etymologists from place names such as Cricklade and Lechlade, from gelād (“channel”), with the reading suggested by the verb lade.[9][7] Collins calls the word of uncertain origin.[16]

Earliest recorded meaning

A watercourse: He ditted þe water lade, in the Cursor Mundi of about 1300, quoted by Wright.[15] The OED's first record is 1706, in Phillips's New World of Words, and it has the mill-race sense only from Jamieson's Scottish dictionary of 1808.[9]

Semantic evolution

Dictionaries kept the general sense alive: Johnson (1755), following Gibson's Camden, explained lade as the mouth of a river, from a Saxon word for discharging.[14] In speech the word was above all Scots, for a channel leading to a mill, often mill-lade,[9][7] as in Stevenson's Catriona (1893);[15] Wright also records it from Northumberland, and in Norfolk as a ditch or drain.[15]

Timeline

  • c. 1300 – water lade, a watercourse, in the Cursor Mundi.[15]
  • 1706 – a course of water, in Phillips's New World of Words.[9]
  • 1808 – a channel taking water to a mill, in Jamieson.[9]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (chiefly Scottish) A channel that carries water to a mill wheel; a millrace.[9][3][16][15]
  2. A watercourse, or the mouth of a river.[3][7][14]

Usage notes

A further noun lade, chiefly dialectal, is a board or rail fixed to the side of a cart or wagon to widen it, recorded from 1686; the OED and the Shorter Oxford think it may come from the verb lade.[9][7] Wright records it in southern counties, among them Essex, Sussex, Somerset and Cornwall.[15]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  5. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  11. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
  12. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  13. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  14. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  15. ^ a b c d e f g h Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  16. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  17. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  18. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Lade.” Etymologically, 6 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/lade. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

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