Definition of "charge"

charge

/t͡ʃɑːd͡ʒ/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural charges
1. The amount of money levied for a service.
2. (military) A ground attack against a prepared enemy.
3. A forceful forward movement.
  Quotations
  Abou Diaby should have added Arsenal's fourth in the 50th minute after he danced round a host of defenders on a charge towards goal
  2011 March 2, Chris Whyatt, “Arsenal 5 - 0 Leyton Orient”, in BBC‎
4. An accusation.
  1. An official description (by the police or a court) of a crime that somebody may be guilty of.
    Quotations
    "Ain't gone be no Rikers Island for you next time," I warned him. "You get tapped on another gun charge and you looking at some upstate time."
    2006, Noire [pseudonym], Thug-A-Licious: An Urban Erotic Tale, New York, N.Y.: One World/Ballantine Books, page 108
  2. An accusation by a person or organization.
    Quotations
    we'll nail the sophist to it, if we can get him on that charge;
    2005, Plato, translated by Lesley Brown, Sophist, page 261a
    A charge often leveled against organic agriculture is that it is more philosophy than science.
    2006, Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma, The Penguin Press, page 150
5. (electromagnetism, chemistry) An electric charge.
6. The scope of someone's responsibility.
  Quotations
  He had the key of a closet in which the moneys of this fund were kept, but the outer key of the vault, of which the closet formed part, was in the charge of another person.
  1848 April 24, John K. Kane, opinion, United States v. Hutchison, as reported in The Pennsylvania law Journal, June 1848 edition, as reprinted in, 1848,The Pennsylvania Law Journal volume 7, page 366
7. Someone or something entrusted to one's care, such as a child to a babysitter or a student to a teacher.
8. A load or burden; cargo.
9. An instruction.
10. (basketball) An offensive foul in which the player with the ball moves into a stationary defender.
11. (firearms) A measured amount of powder and/or shot in a cartridge.
12. (by extension) A measured amount of explosive.
  Quotations
  Watt might have broken the door down, with an axe, or a crow, or a small charge of explosive, but this might have aroused Erskine's suspicions, and Watt did not want that.
  1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, Olympia Press
13. (heraldry) An image displayed on an escutcheon.
14. (weaponry) A position (of a weapon) fitted for attack.
15. (farriery) A sort of plaster or ointment.
16. (obsolete) Weight; import; value.
  Quotations
  many suchlike as's of great charge
  c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act V, scene ii]
17. (historical or obsolete) A measure of thirty-six pigs of lead, each pig weighing about seventy pounds; a charre.
18. (ecclesiastical) An address given at a church service concluding a visitation.
19. (slang, uncountable) Cannabis.
  Quotations
  At about the same time I went off pills and started smoking charge marijuana, you know.
  1966, Alan Bestic, Turn Me on Man, page 58
  It had been a false alarm, and £2 worth of charge (marijuana) had gone out of the window.
  1970, Sean O'Callaghan, Drug Addiction in Britain, page 51
verb
third-person singular simple present charges, present participle charging, simple past and past participle charged
1. To assign a duty or responsibility to.
  Quotations
  Moses […] charged you to love the Lord your God.
  1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Joshua 22:5
  Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition.
  1613 (date written), William Shakespeare, [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act III, scene ii]
2. (transitive) To assign (a debit) to an account.
3. (transitive) To pay on account, as by using a credit card.
4. (transitive, intransitive) To require payment (of) (a price or fee, for goods, services, etc.).
  Quotations
  Imagine a country where children do nothing but play until they start compulsory schooling at age seven. Then, without exception, they attend comprehensives until the age of 16. Charging school fees is illegal, and so is sorting pupils into ability groups by streaming or setting.
  2013 July 19, Peter Wilby, “Finland spreads word on schools”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 30
5. (dated) To sell at a given price.
6. (law) To formally accuse (a person) of a crime.
7. To impute or ascribe.
  Quotations
  No more accuse thy pen, but charge the crime / On native sloth, and negligence of time.
  1693, Decimus Junius Juvenalis, John Dryden, transl., “[The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis.] The Third Satyr”, in The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis. Translated into English Verse. […] Together with the Satires of Aulus Persius Flaccus. […], London: Printed for Jacob Tonson […]
  He lacked the art of wounding with the sword, and in any case his critics charged that he shrank from steel; but his invective was worthy of Demosthenes and his words drew blood.
  1966, Stringfellow Barr, The Mask of Jove
8. To call to account; to challenge.
  Quotations
  to charge me to an answer
  c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act III, scene i]
9. (transitive) To place a burden, load or responsibility on or in.
  Quotations
  the charging of children's memories […] with rules
  1693, [John Locke], “§64”, in Some Thoughts Concerning Education, London: […] A[wnsham] and J[ohn] Churchill, […]
  [H]er grandfather […] charged her as she valued her life never to mention that again […]
  1800, James Hogg, The Mysterious Bride
  [A] huge torrent of boiling black mud, charged with blocks of rock and moving with enormous rapidity, rolled like an avalanche down the gorge.
  1911, The Encyclopedia Britannica, entry on Moya
  1. To ornament with or cause to bear.
  2. (heraldry) To assume as a bearing.
  3. (heraldry) To add to or represent on.
10. (transitive) To load equipment with material required for its use, as a firearm with powder, a fire hose with water, a chemical reactor with raw materials.
  Quotations
  their battering cannon charged to the mouths
  c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act II, scene i]
  1. (transitive) To cause to take on an electric charge.
  2. (transitive) To replenish energy to (a battery, or a device containing a battery) by use of an electrical device plugged into a power outlet.
  3. (intransitive, of a battery or a device containing a battery) To replenish energy.
11. (intransitive) To move forward quickly and forcefully, particularly in combat and/or on horseback.
  Quotations
  Faced with an enemy whose largest gun turrets weigh more than the entire ship, Johnston decides that running is boring, and instead pulls a full 180-degree turn and charges straight back at the attacking forces.
  2019 February 27, Drachinifel, 16:22 from the start, in The Battle of Samar - Odds? What are those?‎, archived from the original on 3 November 2022
  1. (military, transitive and intransitive) To attack by moving forward quickly in a group.
    Quotations
    My Lord, we haue diſcouered the enemieReadie to Charge you with a mightie army.
    c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, Act II, scene iii
  2. (basketball) To commit a charging foul.
  3. (cricket, of a batsman) To take a few steps down the pitch towards the bowler as they deliver the ball, either to disrupt the length of the delivery, or to get into a better position to hit the ball.
12. (transitive, of a hunting dog) To lie on the belly and be still. (A command given by a hunter to a dog)

Definition of "charge"

charge

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