Charge n.
 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.
 Note: ☞ 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. [Obs.]
 5. Harm. [Obs.]
 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.  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.
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