1
as in discharging
to empty or rid of cargo
the dockworkers unloaded the ship
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in dumping
to get rid of as useless or unwanted
I can't seem to unload this old car—even the charities won't take it!
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of unloading
Glabe’s sales follow those of board member Eric Swider, who has also sharply reduced his holdings, unloading around 165,000 shares since November.
—
Zach Everson, Forbes.com, 13 Sep. 2025
Dockworkers were unloading shipping containers from another vessel that was berthed at Pier G before the incident, with truck drivers moving containers to and from the terminal.
—Amaris Encinas, USA Today, 10 Sep. 2025
Some overseas investors have also been unloading government bonds and rotating into Japanese equities , driving its stock markets to fresh highs, analysts who spoke to CNBC noted.
—Lee Ying Shan, CNBC, 3 Sep. 2025
The Twins were holding a historic fire sale, unloading 11 players on or just before deadline day.
—Jon Vankin, MSNBC Newsweek, 30 Aug. 2025
According to California Vehicle Code 22454, drivers must stop when a school bus is loading or unloading passengers with its red lights flashing and stop sign extended — but the rules can change depending on the road type.
—Sacbee.com, 11 Aug. 2025
Zach Everson, Forbes.com, 13 Sep. 2025
Dockworkers were unloading shipping containers from another vessel that was berthed at Pier G before the incident, with truck drivers moving containers to and from the terminal.
—Amaris Encinas, USA Today, 10 Sep. 2025
Some overseas investors have also been unloading government bonds and rotating into Japanese equities , driving its stock markets to fresh highs, analysts who spoke to CNBC noted.
—Lee Ying Shan, CNBC, 3 Sep. 2025
The Twins were holding a historic fire sale, unloading 11 players on or just before deadline day.
—Jon Vankin, MSNBC Newsweek, 30 Aug. 2025
According to California Vehicle Code 22454, drivers must stop when a school bus is loading or unloading passengers with its red lights flashing and stop sign extended — but the rules can change depending on the road type.
—Sacbee.com, 11 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for unloading
Verb
-
Arrington has been charged federally with one count of carjacking and one count of discharging a firearm during a crime of violence.—
Michael Dorgan,
FOXNews.com,
6 Sep. 2025
-
The federal government reported 135,000 job openings, an uptick of 18,000 from June to July, after laying off or discharging 5,000 workers.—
Ty Roush,
Forbes.com,
3 Sep. 2025
Verb
-
The last is dumping iron dust into the Southern Ocean to provoke phytoplankton blooms that would suck heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, a move that set off a backlash when an American entrepreneur tried it off Canada in 2012.—
Alec Luhn,
Scientific American,
11 Sep. 2025
-
The work is part of a larger project with researchers across the region to assess the San Pedro Basin sites, where decades of dumping chemicals like DDT and other pollutants have raised environmental and human health risks.—
Maura Fox,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
11 Sep. 2025
Verb
-
The experts weighed in on the debate, unpacking the hallmarks of this early-2000s trend, why its rustic luxury still resonates two decades later, and how to bring the soul of Tuscany home under a 2025 lens.—
Sophie Flaxman,
Better Homes & Gardens,
9 Sep. 2025
-
Two screenshots from the viral video showing the Albie unpacking his case.—
Lucy Notarantonio,
MSNBC Newsweek,
8 Sep. 2025
Verb
-
The reason for the debris is not that people are discarding the cookies but, rather, the way they’re sold.—
Hannah Goldfield,
New Yorker,
8 Sep. 2025
-
These layers are then reorganized into tensor networks, which retain the most important patterns in the layer’s weights while discarding redundant information that isn’t contributing much to overall performance.—
IEEE Spectrum,
IEEE Spectrum,
3 Sep. 2025
Verb
-
About 700 people live on the 12 Tokara islands, and some of the residents have been evacuating voluntarily to the mainland.—
Hollie Silverman
John Feng,
MSNBC Newsweek,
17 Sep. 2025
-
But there is no apparent mechanism to prevent those Hamas members from joining the throngs of Palestinians evacuating south.—
Oren Liebermann,
CNN Money,
16 Sep. 2025
Verb
-
With more and more people ditching larger sizes, the store has had to be reset multiple times.—
Kevin Williams,
CNBC,
12 Sep. 2025
-
Give and Take All the new iPhones use eSIM worldwide, ditching physical SIM cards for good.—
PC Magazine,
PC Magazine,
10 Sep. 2025
Verb
-
Despite spending the whole three-hour awards show telling people that their overlong speeches were losing the Boys & Girls Club of America money, the bit was a ruse.—
Fran Hoepfner,
Vulture,
15 Sep. 2025
-
Resilience, in the simplest terms, is the ability to recover from challenges, adapt to change and keep moving forward without losing your core sense of purpose.—
Raquel Gomes,
Forbes.com,
15 Sep. 2025
Verb
-
The canister was still wedged in my crotch, off-loading its contents like a homemade Roman candle.—
Charlie Sheen,
HollywoodReporter,
3 Sep. 2019
Cite this Entry
“Unloading.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/unloading. Accessed 18 Sep. 2025.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
Share