to put or set one thing on top of another, whether a hand, an object, a burden, or a blow
At its core this verb does one simple thing: it places something onto someone or something else. The same plain action covers a wide spread of scenes in the New Testament, and the differences are differences of what gets placed and on whom, not differences in the word itself.
The most common scene by far is laying hands on a person. Jesus does it to bless children, to heal the sick, and to restore sight; the early church does it to set people apart for service and to pray for the gift of the Spirit. The same verb then handles ordinary placing: clothes thrown over a donkey, a crown of thorns pressed onto a head, a rescued sheep hoisted onto the shoulders, a cross loaded onto a bystander, sticks dropped onto a fire.
From there it stretches in natural directions. To set a heavy load on someone's shoulders becomes imposing a burden or a rule. To put blows on a person becomes beating or wounding them. To put a name on someone is to give them that name. And in a few places where the subject acts in its own interest, it shades into adding something on, attacking, or providing supplies. These are the same gesture pointed in different directions, which is why one word carries them all.