Using words that carry strong emotional or ideological baggage to frame a person, group, or situation before any evidence is presented. The label does the persuasion work before the argument begins.
A news headline reads: "Regime forces clash with freedom fighters in disputed region." A different outlet covers the same event: "Government troops repel insurgent attack." Same event. Completely different emotional reality — and you haven't read a single fact yet.
Loaded language activates emotional processing before analytical processing kicks in. Once a mental frame is set ("regime" = illegitimate; "freedom fighters" = heroic), people evaluate subsequent evidence through that frame rather than independently. It's not lying — every word might be technically defensible — but the selection is deliberate.
Watch for charged nouns (regime, thug, patriot, terrorist, radical, extremist) used as plain descriptions in place of neutral equivalents.