charges

Multiple Entries:
  charge    chargé d'affaires  

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
charge/tʃɑːʤ/

▶verb

• 1 demand (an amount) as a price for a service rendered or goods supplied.

• 2 formally accuse (someone) of something, especially an offence under law.

• 3 entrust with a task or responsibility.

• 4 store electrical energy in (a battery or battery-operated device).

• 5 technical or formal load or fill (a container, gun, etc.) to the full or proper extent.

  ■ fill with a quality or emotion: the air was charged with menace.

• 6 rush forward in attack.

  ■ move quickly and forcefully.

• 7 Heraldry place a charge on.

▶noun

• 1 a price asked.

  ■ a financial liability or commitment.

• 2 a formal accusation made against a prisoner brought to trial.

• 3 responsibility for care or control.

  ■ a person or thing entrusted to someone's care.

• 4 the property of matter that is responsible for electrical phenomena, existing in a positive or negative form.

  ■ the quantity of this carried by a body.

  ■ energy stored chemically in a battery for conversion into electricity.

• 5 a quantity of explosive to be detonated in order to fire a gun or similar weapon.

• 6 a headlong rush forward, typically in attack.

• 7 an official instruction given by a judge to a jury regarding points of law.

• 8 Heraldry a device or bearing placed on a shield or crest.

– phrases
press (or prefer) charges accuse someone formally of a crime so that they can be brought to trial.
put someone on a charge Brit. charge someone with a specified offence.

– derivatives
chargeable adjective,
charged adjective.

– origin ME, from OFr. charger (v.), charge (n.), from late L. carricare, carcare ‘to load’, from L. carrus ‘wheeled vehicle’.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
chargé d'affaires /ˌʃɑːʒeɪ daˈfɛː/ (also chargé)

▶noun (pl. chargés d'affaires pronunc. same) an ambassador's deputy.

■ a state's diplomatic representative in a minor country.

– origin C18: Fr., ‘(a person) in charge of affairs’.