overburthen

English

Noun

overburthen (plural overburthens)

  1. Archaic form of overburden.
    • 1774, Isaac de Pinto, An Essay on Circulation and Credit, translated by S. Baggs, London: J. Ridley, p. 122,
      The over burthen of these expenses falls upon the sale of the commodity, and lessens the consumption.
    • 1832, John W. Colenso, "A Description of Happy-Union Tin Stream-work at Pentuan" in Transactions of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall, T. Vigurs, Vol. 4, p. 38
      The overburthen contains no sea-sand, but is composed of silt and river gravel [] .

Verb

overburthen (third-person singular simple present overburthens, present participle overburthening, simple past and past participle overburthened)

  1. Archaic form of overburden.
    • 1924, Herman Melville, Billy Budd, London: Constable & Co., Chapter 13,
      In short the last man in the world, one would think, to be overburthened with thoughts, especially those perilous thoughts that must needs belong to a conspirator in any serious project, or even to the underling of such a conspirator.
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.