charge

charge Lade; Ladung

From Middle English chargen, from Old French chargier, from Late Latin carricō (“to load”), from Latin carrus (“a car, wagon”); see car. Doublet of cargo.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /t͡ʃɑːd͡ʒ/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /t͡ʃɑɹd͡ʒ/

Noun

charge (countable and uncountable, plural charges)

1. The amount of money levied for a service.

   There will be a charge of five dollars.

2. (military) An attack in which combatants rush towards an enemy in an attempt to engage in close combat.

   Pickett's Charge; the Charge of the Light Brigade

3. A forceful forward movement.
4. An accusation.

   Synonym: count

   1. An official description (by the police or a court) of a crime that somebody may be guilty of.

      two charges of manslaughter

   2. An accusation by a person or organization.

      That's a slanderous charge of abuse of trust.

5. (electromagnetism, chemistry, physics, countable, uncountable) An electric charge.
6. The scope of someone's responsibility.

   The child was in the nanny's charge.

7. Someone or something entrusted to one's care, such as a child to a babysitter or a student to a teacher.

   The child was a charge of the nanny.

8. A load or burden; cargo.

   The ship had a charge of colonists and their belongings.

9. An instruction.

   I gave him the charge to get the deal closed by the end of the month.

10. (property law) A mortgage.
11. (basketball) An offensive foul in which the player with the ball moves into a stationary defender.
12. (firearms) A measured amount of powder and/or shot in a cartridge.
13. (by extension) A measured amount of explosive.
14. (heraldry) An image displayed on an escutcheon.

    Near-synonym: emblem

15. (weaponry) A position (of a weapon) fitted for attack.

    to bring a weapon to the charge

16. (farriery) A sort of plaster or ointment.
17. (obsolete) Weight; import; value.
18. (historical or obsolete) A measure of thirty-six pigs of lead, each pig weighing about seventy pounds; a charre.
19. (ecclesiastical) An address given at a church service concluding a visitation.
20. (slang, uncountable) Cannabis.