Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A difficult or disagreeable responsibility or necessity; a burden or obligation.
  • noun Responsibility for an error or fault; blame.
  • noun The burden of proof.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A burden: often used for onus probandi, ‘onus of proof.’

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A burden; an obligation.
  • noun obligation to furnish evidence to prove a thing; the burden of proof.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A legal obligation.
  • noun uncountable Burden of proof, onus probandi
  • noun Stigma.
  • noun Blame.
  • noun Responsibility; burden.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an onerous or difficult concern

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin onus ("burden").

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