Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The revenue-producing part of a cargo.
  • noun The total weight of passengers and cargo that an aircraft carries or can carry.
  • noun The total weight of the instruments, crew, and life-support systems that a spacecraft carries or can carry.
  • noun The passengers, crew, instruments, or equipment carried by an aircraft, spacecraft, or rocket.
  • noun The explosive charge carried by a missile or contained in a bomb.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The part of a missile or torpedo that carries the explosive charge.
  • noun The goods carried by a large vehicle.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun That part of a cargo that produces revenue
  • noun The total weight of passengers, crew, equipment, and cargo carried by an aircraft or spacecraft
  • noun That part of a rocket, missile, propelled stinger, or torpedo that is not concerned with propulsion or guidance, such as a warhead or satellite.
  • noun computing The functional part of a computer virus rather than the part that spreads it
  • noun communication The actual data in a data stream

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun goods carried by a large vehicle
  • noun the front part of a guided missile or rocket or torpedo that carries the nuclear or explosive charge or the chemical or biological agents

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

pay +‎ load

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