Definitions

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

  • noun The freight carried by a ship, an aircraft, or another vehicle.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • An exclamation of surprise or contempt.
  • noun The lading or freight of a ship; the goods, merchandise, or whatever is conveyed in a ship or other merchant vessel.
  • noun [Appar. a slang use, perhaps of other origin. Cf. cargo.] A term of contempt applied to a man, usually explained as “bully” or “bravo”: found only in the following passage.

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

  • noun The lading or freight of a ship or other vessel; the goods, merchandise, or whatever is conveyed in a vessel or boat; load; freight.

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

  • noun Freight carried by a ship, aircraft etc.
  • noun Papua New Guinea Western material goods.

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

  • noun goods carried by a large vehicle

Etymologies

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

[Spanish, from cargar, to load, from Late Latin carricāre, from Latin carrus, a Gallic type of wagon; see kers- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Spanish cargo ("load, burden"), from cargar ("to load"), from Late Latin carricare.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word cargo.

Examples

  • So impressed, in fact, that a new religion was born out of the old beliefs: the worship of ‘cargo’ cargo is pidgin for goods of any kind.

    Archive 2006-03-01 Sam Jordison 2006

  • So impressed, in fact, that a new religion was born out of the old beliefs: the worship of ‘cargo’ cargo is pidgin for goods of any kind.

    Cargo Cults Sam Jordison 2006

  • The freight cars get priority, * even though their cargo is usually a little less time sensitive than people.

    Eschaton 2008

  • University of Sheffield is developing what it calls a cargo-screening ferret that uses a combination of laser and fiber-optic technology to sniff out the tiniest traces of drugs, weapons, explosives and even illegal immigrants.

    Gizmag Emerging Technology Magazine 2009

  • So instead of writing new material today, I was rewriting scenes I wrote in the past couple of days, to ensure that I got one character (and important ... let's call it "cargo") into orbit where they have to be for the rest of the book to pan out the way I envision.

    Archive 2006-10-22 Edward Willett 2006

  • So instead of writing new material today, I was rewriting scenes I wrote in the past couple of days, to ensure that I got one character (and important ... let's call it "cargo") into orbit where they have to be for the rest of the book to pan out the way I envision.

    The first sentence I wrote today... Edward Willett 2006

  • A friend of ours, a Mexican, returned from the US and met us in cargo shorts, a Hawaiian shirt and untied jogging shoes .... we teased him unmercifully that he had turned into a gringo.

    how to "pass" for a Mexican 2009

  • A friend of ours, a Mexican, returned from the US and met us in cargo shorts, a Hawaiian shirt and untied jogging shoes .... we teased him unmercifully that he had turned into a gringo.

    how to "pass" for a Mexican 2009

  • A friend of ours, a Mexican, returned from the US and met us in cargo shorts, a Hawaiian shirt and untied jogging shoes .... we teased him unmercifully that he had turned into a gringo.

    how to "pass" for a Mexican 2009

  • A friend of ours, a Mexican, returned from the US and met us in cargo shorts, a Hawaiian shirt and untied jogging shoes .... we teased him unmercifully that he had turned into a gringo.

    how to "pass" for a Mexican 2009

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.