Burdensome; imposing a heavy charge or obligation; archaic or poetic term for something that weighs heavily.
From Old French 'chargeant,' present participle of 'charger' (to load, burden). This is an archaic formation that preserves an older French grammatical structure, now primarily found in heraldic or poetic contexts.
This word is essentially a fossil from Middle English—it never competed with 'burdensome' or 'heavy' in modern speech. Finding it in old texts shows how English actively prunes its vocabulary, keeping useful words and discarding less efficient ones.
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