These words refer to something that is carried or transported. Load is the most general word in that it may be used with any kind of carrier: a man with a load on his back; taking a load of soiled clothes to the laundry; a railway van with a load of oranges. Load also refers to the quantity carried or conveyed, as measured by the capacity of the vehicle or bearer: a truckload of newsprint; an armload of firewood. Sometimes load means anything that is unusually heavy or is borne with difficulty, either in a literal sense or in a figurative one: the plum tree sagging under its load of ripe fruit; smarting under a load of hire-purchase payments.

Goods , freight and cargo are all applied to products carried in large quantities over long distances. Goods has both a substantive sense, which is general (sending the goods by air), and an adjectival sense, which relates solely to railways (a goods train; a goods siding). But trains may also be said to carry freight , as are motor trucks. Cargo is largely restricted to commodities carried by ships and, in more recent times, by aircraft.

Burden , which etymologically means that which is carried or borne, now has limited use when applied to anything physical.

• Donkeys and camels are still widely used in some parts of the world as beasts of burden ; The carrying capacity of a ship and the weight of the cargo are both called the burden .

Burden has greater currency in meaning something borne with difficulty or something that weighs down, especially in a mental or emotional sense: too great a burden of responsibility and worry; a horse quivering under the burden of its 20-stone rider.