carrying capacityn.
/ˈkarɪɪŋ kəˌpasᵻti/, U.S. /ˈkɛriɪŋ kəˌpæsədi/ 1. The weight of cargo, goods, etc., or number of passengers that a vehicle or vessel (originally a ship or fleet) is capable of transporting. Later also in extended use: the load or traffic which a particular object, system, network, etc., is capable of supporting (cf. payload n.).
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1836 Boston Courier 29 Feb. A fleet, with a carrying capacity of more than 1,500,000 tons, navigated by 40,000 seamen, with an investment of 50 millions of dollars in fixed capital.
1871 C. E. Spooner Narrow Gauge Railways 9 I subsequently made several experiments with trains on the Festiniog Railway.., from which it was evident that rolling stock (goods, trucks, &c.) of greater carrying capacity could be used with safety and economy.
1901 Times 13 Sept. 4/4 This rule [sc. driving on the left side of the road] was habitually neglected, and this was one of the chief causes of the limited carrying capacity of the streets.
1947 T. J. Reynolds & E. Kent Struct. Steelwork (ed. 8) iii. 36 Broad flange beams..possess the carrying capacity of built-up girders without the disability of riveting.
1999 Courier-Jrnl. (Louisville, Kentucky) 24 Jan. e2/1 Trucks and SUVs..are the result of a trend that..really began to blossom in the 1980s when the minivan wedded carrying capacity with family-car attributes.
2001 Sci. Amer. Jan. 69 If improvements in fiber optics continue, the carrying capacity of a single fiber may reach hundreds of trillions of bits a second just a decade or so from now.
2. Originally: the maximum number of livestock that can be supported by grazing on a given area of land (cf. carry v. 34a). In later use also: the maximum number of individuals of other species that can be supported by a given area of land; the upper limit of growth of a population imposed by environmental constraints.
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the world > life > biology > balance of nature > population > [noun] > carrying capacity
carrying capacity1857
the world > food and drink > farming > farm > farmland > grassland > [noun] > pasture > capacity of
soum1423
souming1461
levancy and couchancya1691
carrying capacity1857
1857 Argus (Melbourne) 3 June 4/4 It has to be remembered that, in adopting the system of assessment [of land values] according to carrying capacity, Government has not arrived at a simple and self-adjusting scheme.
1889 Science 14 June 458/1 From thirteen to twenty inches of rainfall the increased carrying capacity is about seventy sheep per square mile.
1930 L. G. D. Acland Early Canterbury Runs vii. 151 Hoare.., by ploughing, had raised the carrying capacity [of the station] to over 30,000 sheep in 1890.
1992 Cambr. Encycl. Human Evol. (1994) ii. xii. 96/2 Their intrinsic rate of population increase is then kept at a low level by the constraints of living under competitive conditions close to carrying capacity.
2008 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 20 Nov. 42/3 There is an extensive literature on the ‘carrying capacity’ of our planet—on how many people it can sustain without irreversible degradation.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2021; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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