loader

Etymology

It is formed from English load + -er,^[2][3][4][5] in Middle English as loder, from loden (“to load”).^[6][7][8] The verb is from the Middle English noun lod, and ultimately from Old English lād (“way, course, journey, carrying”).^[6][2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person who loads: 1476, in a letter of J. Paston in the Paston Letters.^[2] Etymonline dates the word to the late 15th century,^[3] the Shorter Oxford to Middle English.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The first loaders were people who loaded goods; the word was also used for a carrier, now obsolete except in dialect, and for the man on top of a wagon or haystack who arranges the hay or corn passed up to him.^[2][4] The English Dialect Dictionary records the haymaking sense in Nottinghamshire and Oxfordshire, and loader for a carter in Somerset.^[9] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as "he who loads".^[5] In 19th-century field sports a loader was an attendant who loaded guns for someone shooting game (1869).^[2] The word was applied to machinery from the 1840s: a loading machine (1843, by 1862 in Etymonline), a device for loading a firearm,^[2][3] and, in compounds, a gun loaded in a particular way, such as a breech-loader or muzzle-loader (1858).^[2] In computing a loader is a program that loads other programs into memory, recorded from 1959.^[2][10] The OED also has an obsolete dicing term, apparently meaning a doublet, used by Dryden (1693), and a loader from the noun load, meaning a load-horse, in N. Breton's Pasquils Fooles-cap (1600).^[2]

Timeline

• 1476 – a person who loads; a carrier.^[2]
• 1600 – a load-horse (obsolete).^[2]
• 1693 – in dicing, apparently a doublet (obsolete).^[2]
• 1843 – a loading machine; a device for loading a firearm.^[2] Etymonline dates the machine sense to 1862.^[3]
• 1858 – a gun loaded in a particular way, as in breech-loader.^[2]
• 1869 – an attendant who loads guns for someone shooting game.^[2]
• 1959 – in computing, a program that loads other programs.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person who loads things, especially one whose work is putting goods onto vehicles, ships or aircraft: The baggage loaders went on strike.^[6][11][4]
2. An attendant who loads guns for someone at a shoot.^[2][12][10]
3. A machine for loading material, such as a conveyor or a power shovel.^[6][11][2]
4. (in combination) A gun, machine or vehicle that is loaded in a particular way: a front-loader, a top-loader.^[10][11][2]
5. (computing) A program that places other programs into memory for execution.^[10][2][4]
6. (obsolete except in dialect) A carrier or carter.^[2][4][9]

Word family

• self-loader
• top loader

Related words

• load
• lade
• lode

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
6. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ a b 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)
10. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ a b c Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press