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What is the difference between burden and weight?

burden | weight |

In transitive terms the difference between burden and weight

is that burden is to encumber with a burden (in any of the noun senses of the word) while weight is to bias something; to slant.

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

    *

    weight

    English

    Noun

    (wikipedia weight) (en noun)
  • The force on an object due to the gravitational attraction between it and the Earth (or whatever astronomical object it is primarily influenced by).
  • An object used to make something heavier.
  • A standardized block of metal used in a balance to measure the mass of another object.
  • Importance or influence.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1897, author=
  • , title= , chapter=1 citation , passage=I liked the man for his own sake, and even had he promised to turn out a celebrity it would have had no weight with me. I look upon notoriety with the same indifference as on the buttons on a man's shirt-front, or the crest on his note-paper.}}
  • * 1907 Alonso de Espinosa, Hakluyt Society & Sir Clements Robert Markham, The Guanches of Tenerife: the holy image of Our Lady of Candelaria, and the Spanish conquest and settlement, Printed for the Hakluyt Society, p116
  • Another knight came to settle on the island, a man of much weight and position, on whom the Adelantados of all the island relied, and who was made a magistrate.
  • * 1945 Mikia Pezas, The price of liberty, I. Washburn, Inc., p11
  • "You surely are a man of some weight around here," I said.
  • (weightlifting) A disc of iron, dumbbell, or barbell used for training the muscles.
  • * He's working out with weights .
  • (physics) Mass (net weight, atomic weight, molecular weight, troy weight, carat weight, etc.).
  • (statistics) A variable which multiplies a value for ease of statistical manipulation.
  • (topology) The smallest cardinality of a base.
  • (typography) The boldness of a font; the relative thickness of its strokes.
  • (visual art) The relative thickness of a drawn rule or painted brushstroke, line weight.
  • (visual art) The illusion of mass.
  • (visual art) The thickness and opacity of paint.
  • pressure; burden
  • the weight of care or business
  • * Shakespeare
  • The weight of this sad time.
  • * Milton
  • For the public all this weight he bears.
  • The resistance against which a machine acts, as opposed to the power which moves it.
  • Derived terms

    * flyweight * heavyweight * lightweight * pseudoweight * pull one's weight * throw one's weight around * topweight * weightful, weightfully, weightfulness * weightlifter * weightlifting * weight of the world * weighty * welterweight

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To add weight to something, in order to make it heavier.
  • To load, burden or oppress someone.
  • (mathematics) To assign weights to individual statistics.
  • To bias something; to slant.
  • (horse racing) To handicap a horse with a specified weight.