Charge (?), n. [F. charge, fr. charger to load. See Charge, v. t., and cf. Cargo, Caricature.] 1. A load or burder laid upon a person or thing.
2. A person or thing commited or intrusted to the care, custody, or management of another; a trust.
☞ The people of a parish or church are called the charge of the clergyman who is set over them.
3. Custody or care of any person, thing, or place; office; responsibility; oversight; obigation; duty.
'Tis a great charge to come under one body's hand.
Shak.
4. Heed; care; anxiety; trouble. Chaucer.
5. Harm. Chaucer.
6. An order; a mandate or command; an injunction.
The king gave cherge concerning Absalom.
2. Sam. xviii. 5.
7. An address (esp. an earnest or impressive address) containing instruction or exhortation; as, the charge of a judge to a jury; the charge of a bishop to his clergy.
8. An accusation of a wrong of offense; allegation; indictment; specification of something alleged.
The charge of confounding very different classes of phenomena.
Whewell.
9. Whatever constitutes a burden on property, as rents, taxes, lines, etc.; costs; expense incurred; — usually in the plural.
10. The price demanded for a thing or service.
11. An entry or a account of that which is due from one party to another; that which is debited in a business transaction; as, a charge in an account book.
12. That quantity, as of ammunition, electricity, ore, fuel, etc., which any apparatus, as a gun, battery, furnace, machine, etc., is intended to receive and fitted to hold, or which is actually in it at one time
13. The act of rushing upon, or towards, an enemy; a sudden onset or attack, as of troops, esp. cavalry; hence, the signal for attack; as, to sound the charge.
Never, in any other war afore, gave the Romans a hotter charge upon the enemies.
Holland.
The charge of the light brigade.
Tennyson.
14. A position (of a weapon) fitted for attack; as, to bring a weapon to the charge.
15. (Far.) A sort of plaster or ointment.
16. (Her.) A bearing. See Bearing, n., 8.
17. [Cf. Charre.] Thirty-six pigs of lead, each pig weighing about seventy pounds; — called also charre.
18. Weight; import; value.
Many suchlike “as's” of great charge.
Shak.
Back charge. See under Back, a. — Bursting charge. (a) (Mil.) The charge which bursts a shell, etc. (b) (Mining) A small quantity of fine powder to secure the ignition of a charge of coarse powder in blasting. — Charge and discharge(Equity Practice), the old mode or form of taking an account before a master in chancery. — Charge sheet, the paper on which are entered at a police station all arrests and accusations. — To sound the charge, to give the signal for an attack.
Syn. — Care; custody; trust; management; office; expense; cost; price; assault; attack; onset; injunction; command; order; mandate; instruction; accusation; indictment.