Offloads

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To shift a load or responsibility to someone else while reducing excess by distributing tasks or items
2. To release oneself from duties or items by transferring them to another party, thereby alleviating personal strain
3. Moves cargo or goods from one place or person to another ; passes duties or tasks to someone else

Etymology: "Offloads" is the third-person singular present form of "offload," so it describes someone or something transferring a burden elsewhere. The verb is built from "off" and "load," and its literal sense is the physical one: taking cargo off a ship, truck or other vehicle. That nautical and freight-handling sense is the older core of the word, and the figurative use, unloading a worry or task onto someone else, grew naturally out of it, with the same image of setting down something heavy. The word "load" traces back to Old English "lād," meaning a way or course, which later came to mean a carrying or the thing carried. "Off" is the ordinary English preposition meaning away from a surface or position. Putting them together gives a compound whose plain meaning is still visible in every use: something that was weighing on you or your vehicle is now removed and set down elsewhere.

Synonyms: discharges, unloads, dumps, removes, divests

Antonyms: loads, burdens, carries, encumbers, packs