0 an animal such as a donkey or an ox that is used to carry or pull things
1 an animal used to perform work
Elephants.—They are expensive and delicate, but excellent beasts of burden, in rainy tropical countries.
She could hear him behind her panting like a tired beast of burden.
The scarcity of four-footed beasts of burden is noticeable after the crowded Moorish thoroughfares.
To my astonishment, we met several trains of camels, and I learnt afterwards, that these animals were used as beasts of burden by the Kurds, as well as the Arabs.