Old English hladan (past tense hlod, past participle gehladen) "to load, heap" (the general Germanic sense), also "to draw water" (a meaning peculiar to English), from Proto-Germanic *khlad- (cognates: Old Norse hlaða, Old Saxon hladan, Middle Dutch and Dutch laden, Old Frisian hlada "to load," Old High German hladen, German laden), from PIE *kla- "to spread out flat" (cognates: Lithuanian kloti "to spread," Old Church Slavonic klado "to set, place").