Purport vs Burden - What's the difference?

In obsolete terms the difference between purport and burden

is that purport is disguise; covering while burden is theme, core idea.

As verbs the difference between purport and burden

is that purport is to convey, imply, or profess outwardly (often falsely) while burden is to encumber with a burden (in any of the noun senses of the word).

As nouns the difference between purport and burden

is that purport is import, intention or purpose while burden is a heavy load.

purport

English

Verb

(en verb)

To convey, imply, or profess outwardly (often falsely).

He purports himself to be an international man of affairs.

To intend.

He purported to become an international man of affairs.

Noun

(en noun)

import, intention or purpose

* 1748 ,

My practice, you say, refutes my doubts. But you mistake the purport of my question.

* 1843 , '', book 4, chapter I, ''Aristocracies

Sorrowful, phantasmal as this same Double Aristocracy of Teachers and Governors now looks, it is worth all men’s while to know that the purport of it is, and remains, noble and most real.

* 1939 ,

A child’s brain starts functioning at birth; and has, amongst its many infant convolutions, thousands of dormant atoms, into which God has put a mystic possibility for noticing an adult’s act, and figuring out its purport .

(obsolete) disguise; covering

* Spenser

For she her sex under that strange purport / Did use to hide.

Anagrams

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.