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overload

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Etymology and origin of the English word overload

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
1553 Thomas Wilson's Arte of Rhetorique
Ultimate origins
English over-Old English lad
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
English load
English overload
From the same root
English download ← load
English workload ← load

Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˌəʊvəˈləʊd/, /ˈəʊvəˌləʊd/[1]
  • US: /ˌoʊvɚˈloʊd/, /ˈoʊvɚˌloʊd/[1]

Etymology

It is formed from English over- + load.[2][3][4][5][6][7] The verb comes first, from load the verb; the noun is from load the noun.[2][3] Middle English had overladen in the same sense,[3][8] the source of overladen.[3] An Old English noun oferlād (“a carrying across, translation”), modelled on Latin translātio, is recorded in the Durham Ritual;[2][9] the OED treats it as an early, obsolete sense of the noun.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To load with too heavy a burden or cargo: 1553, in Thomas Wilson's Arte of Rhetorique;[2] Etymonline dates it to the 1550s.[3]

Semantic evolution

The verb was used from the start of loads and cargoes, and also of overcharging a gun and, figuratively, of burdening the mind;[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as "to burthen with too much", with a quotation about a child's memory "charged and over-loaded".[7] The noun, an excessive load or burden, followed in 1645.[2][3] Electrical engineering gave it new senses: the verb of subjecting a circuit to too great a current in 1889, and the noun of an excessive current in 1904.[2][3] The intransitive use, to become overloaded, is dated 1932 by the OED[2] and 1961 by Etymonline.[3] Compounds such as information overload and sensory overload extend the figurative noun.[1]

Timeline

  • 1553 – verb, to load too heavily; also figurative.[2]
  • 1645 – noun, an excessive load or burden.[2][3]
  • 1889 – verb, to put too great a current through an electrical circuit.[2]
  • 1904 – noun, an electric current above the normal or permitted level.[2][3]
  • 1932 – intransitive, to become overloaded.[2]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To put too great a load on or in something: Don't overload the trailer or the axle will bend.[10][4][2]
  2. To give too much work, information or responsibility to someone; to overburden.[10][2]
  3. To send too great a current or voltage through an electrical circuit or device.[2][4]
  4. To take on, or be subjected to, too heavy a load.[4][2]

Noun

  1. An excessive load or burden: an overload of paperwork.[10][4][2]
  2. A current or other quantity above what a circuit or device is designed to carry.[2]

Word family

  • information overload

References

  1. ^ a b c 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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  7. ^ 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.
  8. ^ 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)
  9. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
Cite this entry

“Overload.” Etymologically, 31 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/en/overload. Accessed 31 Oct. 2026.

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