Burden vs Baggage - What's the difference?

As nouns the difference between burden and baggage

is that burden is a heavy load or burden can be (music) a phrase or theme that recurs at the end of each verse in a folk song or ballad while baggage is (usually|uncountable) luggage; traveling equipment.

As a verb burden

is to encumber with a burden (in any of the noun senses of the word ).

burden

English

(wikipedia burden)

Etymology 1

From (etyl) burden, birden, burthen, birthen, byrthen, from (etyl) byrden, .

Alternative forms

* burthen (archaic)

Noun

(en noun)

A heavy load.

* 1898 , , (Moonfleet) Chapter 4

There were four or five men in the vault already, and I could hear more coming down the passage, and guessed from their heavy footsteps that they were carrying burdens .

A responsibility, onus.

A cause of worry; that which is grievous, wearisome, or oppressive.

* Jonathan Swift

Deaf, giddy, helpless, left alone, / To all my friends a burden grown.

The capacity of a vessel, or the weight of cargo that she will carry.

a ship of a hundred tons burden

(mining) The tops or heads of stream-work which lie over the stream of tin.

(metalworking) The proportion of ore and flux to fuel, in the charge of a blast furnace.

(Raymond)

A fixed quantity of certain commodities.

A burden of gad steel is 120 pounds.

(obsolete, rare) A birth.

That bore thee at a burden two fair sons

Verb

(en verb)

To encumber with a burden (in any of the noun senses of the word ).

to burden a nation with taxes

* Bible, 2 Corinthians viii. 13

I mean not that other men be eased, and ye burdened .

* Shakespeare

My burdened heart would break.

To impose, as a load or burden; to lay or place as a burden (something heavy or objectionable).

* Coleridge

It is absurd to burden this act on Cromwell.

Derived terms

* burdensome * beast of burden

Etymology 2

From (etyl) bordon. See bourdon.

Noun

(en noun)

(music) A phrase or theme that recurs at the end of each verse in a folk song or ballad.

* 1610 , , act 1 scene 2

[...] Foot it featly here and there; / And, sweet sprites, the burden bear.

* 1846 ,

As commonly used, the refrain, or burden , not only is limited to lyric verse, but depends for its impression upon the force of monotone - both in sound and thought.

The drone of a bagpipe.

(Ruddiman)

(obsolete) Theme, core idea.

Anagrams

baggage

English

Noun

(en-noun)

(usually, uncountable) Luggage; traveling equipment

Please put your baggage in the trunk.

* {{quote-book, year=1929, author=Charles Georges Souli, title=Eastern Shame Girl, chapter=, edition= citation

, passage=As soon as they had determined on their course, Ya-nei slid under the bed, and made himself a place among the baggages . }}

* {{quote-news, year=1991, date=September 20, author=Jonathan Rosenbaum, title=Love Films: A Cassavetes Retrospective, work=Chicago Reader citation

, passage=Alone, she clings to her baggages on the street. }}

* '>citation

(uncountable, informal) Factors, especially psychological ones, which interfere with a person's ability to function effectively..

He's got a lot of emotional baggage .

* {{quote-book, year=1846, author=Henry Francis Cary, title=Lives of the English Poets, chapter=, edition= citation

, passage=

(obsolete, countable, pejorative) A woman

* {{quote-book, year=1828, author=Various, title=The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. 288, chapter=, edition= citation

, passage=Betty and Molly (they were soft-hearted baggages ) felt for their master--pitied their poor master! }}

* {{quote-book, year=1897, author=Charles Whibley, title=A Book of Scoundrels, chapter=, edition= citation

, passage=But he had a roving eye and a joyous temperament; and though he loved me better than any of the baggages to whom he paid court, he would not visit me so often as he should. }}

* {{quote-book, year=1910, author=Gertrude Hall, title=Chantecler, chapter=, edition= citation

, passage=But your perverse attempts to wring blushes from little baggages in convenient corners outrage my love of Love! }}

(military, countable, and, uncountable) An army's portable equipment; its baggage train.

* {{quote-book, year=1865, author=Thomas Carlyle, title=History of Friedrich II of Prussia, chapter=, edition= citation

, passage=Friedrich decides to go down the River; he himself to Lowen, perhaps near twenty miles farther down, but where there is a Bridge and Highway leading over; Prince Leopold, with the heavier divisions and baggages , to Michelau, some miles nearer, and there to build his Pontoons and cross. }}

* 2007 , Norman Davies, No Simple Victory: World War II in Europe, 1939–1945 , New York: Penguin, p 305:

In Poland, for example, the unknown Boles?aw Bierut, who appeared in 1944 in the baggage of the Red Army, and who played a prominent role as a ‘non-party figure’ in the Lublin Committee, turned out to be a Soviet employee formerly working for the Comintern.

Synonyms

* (luggage) luggage, gear, stuff, bags

Derived terms

* baggage carousel * baggage claim * baggage handler * baggage reclaim * baggage train * bag and baggage * blind baggage * excess baggage