payload

noun

pay·​load ˈpā-ˌlōd 

plural payloads

1

: the load carried by a vehicle exclusive of what is necessary for its operation

especially : the load carried by an aircraft or spacecraft consisting of people or things (such as passengers or instruments) necessary to the purpose of the flight

NASA's first post-Challenger launching is tentatively set for May 1. Its payload, the NOAA-G weather satellite, will be lofted by an expendable Scout rocket.

—J. Eberhart

Their objective was to size the airplane according to its intended payload.

—Clive Irving

2

: the weight of a payload

… the Bronco had a payload of 2000 pounds.

—Darryl Young

Maximum fuel load is 3,550 pounds, leaving a payload of just 360 pounds with full tanks.

—J. Mac McClellan

3

: the destructive component carried by a missile or bomb

… they did not fail to realize that a missile powerful enough to put a satellite into orbit could also deliver a nuclear payload to Washington, D.C., or New York, or Chicago, or any major American city.

—Alex Wellerstein

also : something likened to such a payload

American computer security experts were first to spot another worm whose virus payload was contained within an e-mail that masqueraded as a virus alert from Symantec.

—Pacific Business News

Thus, a potential pitfall for using adenoviruses as a vaccine delivery system is that a person's immune system may end up responding more to the adenovirus itself than the vaccine's genetic payload …

—Beth Mole

Synonyms

• burden
• cargo
• draft
• freight
• haul
• lading
• load
• loading
• weight

Examples of payload in a Sentence

The truck is carrying a payload of 2,580 pounds.

the space shuttle can carry a maximum payload of approximately 50,000 pounds

Recent Examples on the Web

The team released the weather balloon, carrying a payload with two cameras and two trackers, from Concord in the city of Vaughan, Ontario, just slightly north of Toronto. —Ashley Strickland, CNN, 12 Apr. 2024

Hamilton figured that a digital dead man’s switch, which would release a document payload instead of switching off a machine, could help someone to recover their wallet or pass credentials to an inheritor without having to trust a third party. —Joel Khalili, WIRED, 10 Apr. 2024

With 27 tracks spanning 78 minutes, the album is a payload of provocation and flat-out astonishing music that will take a while to fully digest. —Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 29 Mar. 2024

SpaceX had also hoped to demonstrate several other processes and capabilities during the flight, including opening and closing the vehicle’s payload door and transferring propellant between two of Starship’s tanks in orbit. —Denise Chow, NBC News, 14 Mar. 2024

After the Vampire dropped its payload, intercepts on the frequencies revealed that the Russians in the cellar had survived both the grenades and the mines, and that their unit was sending reinforcements. —Luke Mogelson, The New Yorker, 8 Apr. 2024

Future versions of Talon-A vehicles will be rocket-powered and capable of carrying customizable payloads at hypersonic speeds. —Passant Rabie / Gizmodo, Quartz, 11 Mar. 2024

Among the probe’s payload were tardigrades, renowed for their ability to survive in even the harshest climates. —Laurent Palka, Discover Magazine, 1 Mar. 2024

Odysseus was partially funded by NASA's Commercial Lunar Services Payloads program, designed to encourage private industry to develop transportation capabilities that the agency can then use to transport payloads to the moon. —William Harwood, CBS News, 24 Feb. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1914, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Kids Definition

payload

noun

pay·​load ˈpā-ˌlōd 

: something (as cargo, passengers, instruments, or explosives) carried by a vehicle in addition to what is necessary for its operation