burthen
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English[edit]
Pronunciation[edit]
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈbɝðn̩/
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈbɜːðn̩/
- Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)ðən
Noun[edit]
burthen (plural burthens)
- (obsolete or historical, nautical) The tonnage of a ship based on the number of tuns of wine that it could carry in its holds.
- 1940 December, Charles E. Lee, “The Wenford Mineral Line”, in Railway Magazine, page 647, from the Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, October 3, 1834:
- [...] and thence to Calstock, a town on the Tamar, which is washed by the sea flowing through Plymouth Sound and Hamoaze, and which place vessels of 200 tons burthen can reach at spring tides—[...].
- Archaic form of burden.
- 1798, William Wordsworth, Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey, lines 36-43:
- Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened:
- Nor less, I trust,
- 1817, Jane Austen, Persuasion:
- It was with a daughter of Mr Shepherd, who had returned, after an unprosperous marriage, to her father's house, with the additional burthen of two children.
- c. 1860, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Husbandsmen, lines 4, 6-7:
- Bidding them grope their way out and bestir,
[…] though the worst
Burthen of heat was theirs and the dry thirst
- Bidding them grope their way out and bestir,
- 1848, John Stuart Mill
Principles of Political Economy, vol. 1, p. 113.
- 1798, William Wordsworth, Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey, lines 36-43:
Verb[edit]
burthen (third-person singular simple present burthens, present participle burthening, simple past and past participle burthened)
- Archaic form of burden.
- 1883, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island:
- The other men were variously burthened; some carrying picks and shovels – for that had been the very first necessary they brought ashore from the Hispaniola – others laden with pork, bread, and brandy for the midday meal.
Anagrams[edit]
Categories:
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- Rhymes:English/ɜː(ɹ)ðən
- Rhymes:English/ɜː(ɹ)ðən/2 syllables
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