1663 Marquis of Worcester Cent. Names & Scantlings Inventions §58 To make a Pistol discharge a dozen times with one loading.

1748 B. Robins & R. Walter Voy. round World by Anson iii. viii. 375 The whole crew..were rendered extremely skilful. For besides an uncommon readiness in loading, they were all of them good marksmen.

1879 Cassell's Techn. Educator ii. 66 The loading was effected almost as easily and rapidly as in a smooth-bore.

1867 C. Walford Insur. Guide (ed. 2) 258 Some loading to the pure premiums may be considered as absolutely necessary.

1867 C. Walford Insur. Guide (ed. 2) 329 There will still remain..a considerable surplus, after paying all proper expenses, out of the loading of the premiums.

1881 Encycl. Brit. XIII. 173/1 With the introduction..of mortality tables which approached more closely the death-rates among assured lives, there revived the practice of making an addition to the pure premiums, in order to provide for expenses, for fluctuations in the death-rate, and for other contingencies. This addition is called the ‘loading’ or ‘margin’... The terms ‘loading’ and ‘margin’ have come to bear a somewhat extended meaning. They are now used to designate the difference between the premiums payable by the assured and the net premiums deduced from any table that may be employed for the time.

1896 T. C. Allbutt et al. Syst. Med. I. 477 The calculated premium is slightly in excess of the true net premium, and the ‘loading’ in contingent cases is usually heavy.

1918 W. L. Cowley & H. Levy Aeronautics viii. 163 When the aeroplane is just smoothing out from a steep dive the angle of attack is suddenly increased and the loading rapidly attains a value which in practice is several times its normal. This [sic] in all essentials a live load is allowed for in the safety factor.

1919 H. Shaw Text-bk. Aeronaut. xv. 181 The loading of a machine, which is the weight carried per unit area of surface, varies in different types.

1936 Discovery Mar. 73/2 Most birds fly at a loading of 1¹/ ₂ to 2¹/ ₂ lb. per sq. ft.

1973 Sci. Amer. Dec. 103/2 The glider can travel much faster than the vulture at a given gliding angle. This is owing partly to..its higher wing loading (the ratio of weight to wing area).

1931 Psychol. Rev. 38 407 Our next problem is to assign a weight or loading of each of the general factors to each of the variables... Engineering, for example, has a high loading of interest in science, a rather low loading of interest in language.

1935 L. L. Thurstone Vectors of Mind viii. 201 (heading) The elimination of negative factor loadings.

1947 L. E. Tyler Psychol. Human Differences xv. 364 The task of the factor analyst then becomes one of determining these weights or loadings. The raw material for the mathematical work in each case is the original table of intercorrelations.

1952 R. B. Cattell Factor Analysis xviii. 340 The factor loading (situational index) is not a measure of the mean amount of the contribution of the factor to the situation. For example, the discovery that in a certain collection of books, the factor of weight is loaded 0·6 in thickness and only 0·2 in height simply indicates that for a given weight (overall size) these books vary more in thickness than they do in height—as books on a tidy shelf should.

1971 Jrnl. Gen. Psychol. 85 72 The loadings have been rounded to two figures and the order of both factors and variables rearranged to facilitate inspection.

1971 Jrnl. Gen. Psychol. 85 212 Because many of the memory tests require recall of the items memorized, and because the operations of divergent and convergent production are so much dependent upon retrieval of information from the memory store, it might be expected that..either production tests would have some memory loadings, or memory tests would have some loadings on production factors.

1963 Listener 31 Jan. 202/2 The whole street is sometimes used as an open-air loading bay and temporary warehouse.

1971 R. Busby Deadlock x. 152 The roller doors of the loading bay were shut.

1901 Ann. Rep. Amer. Telephone & Telegr. Co. 4 The efficiency of these lines will be largely increased by the use of ‘loading coils’.

1922 R. Glazebrook Dict. Appl. Physics II. 853/1 Loading coils are encased in iron cases and are mounted in manholes—if the circuit..is a cable circuit—or are mounted at the cross-arms of poles if the circuit..is an open-wire line.

1974 Encycl. Brit. Micropædia VI. 286/1 Auto radios generally use loading coils because whip antennas are much too short to resonate at broadcast frequencies.

1883 F. S. Williams Our Iron Roads (ed. 2) ix. 266 Among the minor appurtenances of a railway station is the wagon loading gauge.

1901 Young Engineer I. 53 The fire-box may be extended to the full width of the loading gauge.

1930 Engineering 22 Aug. 230/2 The upper part [of a coke wagon] slopes inward to suit the loading gauge.

1864 G. O. Trevelyan Lett. from Competition Wallah vi, in Macmillan's Mag. Nov. 29/2 I appeared among them with my loading-rod.

1858 P. L. Simmonds Dict. Trade Products Loading Turn, the successive rotation for ships to approach the quays, to take in cargo.

1899 Westm. Gaz. 20 Apr. 5/3 Many of the collieries have little or nothing to sell for some weeks ahead, while loading turns as a rule are practically full to the end of the month.

1965 Jrnl. Neurochem. 12 491 No 5-hydroxytryptophan was detected in the brain after tryptophan loading, although it appeared in measurable amounts in the plasma.

1975 Nature 20 Nov. 227/1 Four hours after salt loading, vagotomised rats still drank less.

1985 Bodypower Oct. 12/1 (advt.) This product is also used for carbohydrate loading prior to an athletic event or body-building contest.

1990 Ironman Oct. 32/1 You'll learn how your body reacts to carb or protein ‘loading’ or depletion and how specific foods make you feel and look.

1937 Sydney Morning Herald 24 June 6/3 The [Arbitration] Court formed the opinion that the highest loading should be made for New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland.

1941 Commonwealth Arbitration Rep. 44 456 In addition to amounts otherwise payable a special loading at the rate of 3s. per week shall be payable to occupants of any of the callings specified.

1965 Austral. Encycl. I. 447/2 All courts award ‘margins’ or ‘loadings’, for skill, overtime, week-end work, danger, and dirt.

1972 Age (Melbourne) 14 Dec. 1/7 Victorian painters will receive a 17½ per cent. loading of their three-weeks holiday pay as a Christmas bonus.

1984 Austral. Financial Rev. 9 Nov. 17/4 (advt.) The Company provides an outstanding benefits package including immediate superannuation, 4 weeks' annual leave with loading and a comprehensive health benefits plan.

1991 Chron. Higher Educ. (U.S.) 20 Feb. b6 (advt.) Salary will be at the rate of $A67,812 p.a., plus a clinical loading of $A12,058. Additional allowances may be payable by the Central Sydney Area Health Service.

1957 Buses Illustr. VII. 200/1 First impressions [of driving a bus in a holiday resort] are of abnormally heavy loading, which is spread fairly evenly throughout the day.

1976 Southern Evening Echo (Southampton) 13 Nov. 6/1 Loadings are higher on Saturday through the day with football enthusiasts and shoppers.

1987 Ships Monthly July 20/2 With some fully booked sailings and generally high loadings, the Easter and May Day Bank Holiday period suggested no obvious public reaction to Zeebrugge.

1987 Railway World Nov. 650/1 Apart from poor loadings on 6 September, patronage has been good, with 480 passengers on the 11.05 ex-Swansea of 12 September.

1992 Mod. Railways Mar. 145/2 Times change; today's loadings are well within the capacity of at most a couple of buses or coaches.

1891 Labour Commission Gloss. Loading-up Men, men at the docks who stop the bales from the cranes and pile them up on the trucks.

1625 F. Bacon Ess. (new ed.) 69 Such Men, in other mens Calamities, are, as it were, in season, and are euer on the loading Part.

1632 tr. G. Bruele Praxis Medicinæ 2 The paine that doth seaze thereon [the brain], is farre duller, and more loading.

1642 S. Ashe Best Refuge 29 Our Patentees,..may justly be cast under this loading aggravation.

1858 W. Greener Gunnery in 1858 17 Breech-loading guns cannot be made sufficiently durable to yield any reasonable return for the extra expense and trouble.

1889 Sat. Rev. 16 Mar. 318/1 The relative effects of breech-loading and muzzle-loading rifle fire.

1902 Daily Chron. 15 Apr. 3/1 Daylight-loading cameras.