charge
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.
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /t͡ʃɑːd͡ʒ/
- (General American) IPA(key): /t͡ʃɑɹd͡ʒ/
charge (countable and uncountable, plural charges)
- The amount of money levied for a service.
- There will be a charge of five dollars.
- (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
- A forceful forward movement.
- An accusation.
- Synonym: count
- An official description (by the police or a court) of a crime that somebody may be guilty of.
- two charges of manslaughter
- An accusation by a person or organization.
- That's a slanderous charge of abuse of trust.
- (electromagnetism, chemistry, physics, countable, uncountable) An electric charge.
- The scope of someone's responsibility.
- The child was in the nanny's charge.
- 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.
- A load or burden; cargo.
- The ship had a charge of colonists and their belongings.
- An instruction.
- I gave him the charge to get the deal closed by the end of the month.
- (property law) A mortgage.
- (basketball) An offensive foul in which the player with the ball moves into a stationary defender.
- (firearms) A measured amount of powder and/or shot in a cartridge.
- (by extension) A measured amount of explosive.
- (heraldry) An image displayed on an escutcheon.
- Near-synonym: emblem
- (weaponry) A position (of a weapon) fitted for attack.
- to bring a weapon to the charge
- (farriery) A sort of plaster or ointment.
- (obsolete) Weight; import; value.
- (historical or obsolete) A measure of thirty-six pigs of lead, each pig weighing about seventy pounds; a charre.
- (ecclesiastical) An address given at a church service concluding a visitation.
- (slang, uncountable) Cannabis.