laden

<font size="-1" face="arial, helvetica"> <p> <strong> <font color="#000066">Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 10, 2023 is:</font> </strong> </p> <p> <strong>laden</strong> &#149; \LAY-dun\&nbsp; &#149; <em>adjective</em><br /> <p><em>Laden</em> describes things that are heavily loaded with something, literally or figuratively.</p> <p>// Airline passengers <em>laden</em> with luggage inched slowly through the gate.</p> <p>// His voice was heavily <em>laden</em> with sarcasm.</p> <p><a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/laden">See the entry ></a></p> </p> <p> <strong>Examples:</strong><br /> <p>"While dating sites and apps can be convenient ways to meet a special someone, many singles find that the road to love is often <em>laden</em> with potholes and pitfalls." — Charanna Alexander, <em>The New York Times</em>, 14 Feb. 2020</p> </p> <p> <strong>Did you know?</strong><br /> <p>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. <em>Laden</em> has been used as an adjective to describe heavily loaded things for a millennium, but its source is an even older verb: <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lade"><em>lade</em></a>, meaning primarily "to load something." <em>Lade</em> today mostly occurs in contexts relating to shipping; its related noun <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lading"><em>lading</em></a> may be familiar from the phrase <em>bill of lading</em>, which refers to a document listing goods to be shipped and the terms of their transport. <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/laden#h2"><em>Laden</em></a> 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 sometime