Load-bearing

adj, noun

adj, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The carrying of loads. uncountable

    "The porters, who stand in knots with cords upon their shoulders, bear huge loads; a characteristic of the place is this load-bearing and the size of the burdens."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Able to support a load. not-comparable

    "1908, Frederick E. Turneaure, Editor-in-Chief, Cyclopedia of Civil Engineering The different forms of partitions that are not load-bearing will be considered under "Fireproofing.""

  2. 2
    Of a physical, digital, procedural etc. component, necessary to the integrity of the system of which it forms a part. figuratively, not-comparable

    "The number keeps going up, which has a buoying effect on markets that is, in the short term, good. But every good earnings report further entrenches Nvidia as a precariously placed, load-bearing piece of the global economy."

Adjective
  1. 1
    capable of bearing a structural load wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
supportingweight-bearing

Example

More examples

"The removal of the load-bearing beam compromised the structure of the building."

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.