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.] --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 soft 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}.
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.