laden

1 of 2

adjective

lad·​en ˈlā-dᵊn 

: carrying a large load or burden : heavily or abundantly loaded

a richly laden ship

—usually used with with

passengers laden with luggage

With … the tables and shelves laden with books and gifts, and the scent of coffee wafting through the room, the shop quickly found a place in the hearts of its Auburn customers.

—Giana Han

His arms are laden with bracelets; his fingers stacked with rings; his ears pierced with a cluster of glittering hoops.

—Liana Satenstein

(figurative) … a year that looks to be laden with opportunities and stumbling blocks for the drug industry.

—Damian Garde

(figurative) While dating sites and apps can be convenient ways to meet a special someone, many singles find that the road to love is often laden with potholes and pitfalls.

—Charanna Alexander

—often used in combination

sugar-laden cereals

(figurative) a curse-laden rant

laden

2 of 2

verb

ladened; ladening ˈlād-niŋ 

ˈlā-dᵊn-iŋ

; ladens

transitive verb

: lade

heavily ladened with equipment

—Isabel M. Lewis

Did you know?

Something that is laden seems to be, or actually is, weighed down by the large amount of whatever it’s carrying: tree branches laden with fruit bend toward the ground; newspaper articles laden with technical jargon are hard to read; and sugar-laden cereal is very, very sweet. Laden has been used as an adjective to describe heavily loaded things for a millennium, but its source is an even older verb: lade, meaning primarily "to load something." Lade today mostly occurs in contexts relating to shipping; its related noun lading may be familiar from the phrase bill of lading, which refers to a document listing goods to be shipped and the terms of their transport. Laden is itself sometimes used as a verb meaning "to load something" (as in "ladening the truck with equipment"), and an adjectival form of that word sometimes appears too, as in "a truck ladened with equipment." Plain old laden is preferred in such cases though: "a truck laden with equipment."

Synonyms

Verb

• burden
• encumber
• freight
• lade
• load
• lumber
• saddle
• weight

Examples of laden in a Sentence

Verb

laden a ship with emergency medical supplies

Recent Examples on the Web

Adjective

In September 1856, the three-year-old, 171-foot long Steamboat Arabia, laden with over 200 tons of cargo bound for 16 frontier towns, struck a tree snag and quickly sank to the bottom of the Missouri River, just six miles west of Kansas City. —Tammy Ljungblad, Kansas City Star, 22 Apr. 2025

They’re scattered across the beach and overwater promenade, laden with luxuries, like butler service, Diptyque toiletries, and sea views from bed. —Travel + Leisure Editors, Travel + Leisure, 16 Apr. 2025

Verb

Ships still laden with some 240 tons of aid that arrived just a day earlier turned back from Gaza, according to Cyprus, which has played a key role in trying to establish a sea route to bring food to the territory. —Wafaa Shurafa, Samy Magdy, and Tia Goldenberg, The Christian Science Monitor, 2 Apr. 2024

The retailers’ graveyard is filled with once-proud brands, from upscale department store chain Lord & Taylor to RadioShack to Toys ‘R’ Us to Payless Shoes, all of which were forced into bankruptcy and closure due to the unaffordable debt that private equity owners ladened onto their balance sheets. —Chris Isidore, CNN, 27 Feb. 2024

Word History

Etymology

Adjective

see lade

Verb

see lade

First Known Use

Adjective

circa 1595, in the meaning defined above

Verb

1514, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for laden

• maidan
• maiden
• handmaiden
• menhaden
• unladen

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