English → Latin
“burden” in Latin
onusburden, load; cargo, freight; tax, tax burdensarcinaa package, pack; burden, weight, sorrow; baggage, luggagemūnusa service, office, employment; a burden, duty, obligation; a service, favorsustineōto hold up or upright, uphold, support, sustain; to keep up, bear up, tolerate; to hold or keep back or in, stay, check,suscipiōto take up, acknowledge; to undertake, assume, begin, incur, enter upon (especially when done voluntarily and as a favormolestustroublesome, irksome, grievous, annoying, tiresomeonerōto burden, lade, load, heap up anything in anything; to overwhelm, weary, oppress; to make more burdensome, aggravategravōto burden, weigh down, oppress; to make pregnant; to aggravate, make worsegravisheavy; pregnant; troublesome, hardonustusloaded with, laden, burdened, full of (coupled with genitive or ablative)
The English word burden itself goes back to Latin burdō.
Riddle & Arnold A Copious and Critical English–Latin Lexicon, 1864
burden s.
onus (general term), sarcina (what a man carries or may carry). To bear a burden, onus ferre, sustinere. To take a burden upon one’s self, onus recipere, suscipere: to lay it down, onus deponere. To be a burden to one, alicui oneri esse, molestum or gravem esse alicui. I will bear the burden of this odium, molem hujus invidiae sustinebo. A ship of burden, navis oneraria. Beast of burden, jumentum onerarium, jumentum; jumentum sarcinarium (e.g., pack-horse).
A ship of 300 tons burden, navis trecentarum amphorarum. FIG., load, pressure, etc., onus, molestia, incommodum, cura.
Taxes, onera, munera.
The burden of the song, versus intercalaris (Servius, Verg., Ecl., 8, 21): FIG., this is ever the burden of his song, eandem canit cantilenam (Ter.).
burden v.
onerare, gravare; oneri esse alicui gravem or molestum esse alicui; molestiam alicui afferre, molestia aliquem afficere. The body greatly burdens the mind, corpus praegravat animum. Burdened, oneratus; gravatus; gravis: onustus. To burden one with asking obtundere aliquem rogitando.
Quick answer
- What is the Latin word for burden?
- The usual Latin words for “burden” are onus, sarcina, mūnus; also sustineō, suscipiō, molestus. The right choice depends on the sense; see the distinctions below.
Entry from J. E. Riddle & T. K. Arnold, A Copious and Critical English–Latin Lexicon (rev. C. Anthon, New York: Harper, 1864), digitised by Fergus J. P. Walsh, CC BY-SA 4.0; Latin markup adapted by latindictionary.co.