freight
Meanings
- The transportation of goods (originally by water; now also (chiefly US) by land); also, the hiring of a vehicle or vessel for such transportation.
- Goods or items in transport; cargo, luggage.
- Payment for transportation.
- A burden, a load.
- Cultural or emotional associations.
- Ellipsis of freight train.
- To load (a vehicle or vessel) with freight (cargo); also, to hire or rent out (a vehicle or vessel) to carry cargo or passengers.
- To transport (goods).
- To load or store (goods, etc.).
- To carry (something) as if it is a burden or load.
- Chiefly followed by up: to carry as part of a cargo.
- Freighted; laden.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
From Late Middle English freight, freght, freyght [and other forms], a variant of fraught, fraght (“transport of goods or people, usually by water; transportation fee; transportation facilities; cargo or passengers of a ship; (figuratively) burden; ballast of a ship; goods; a charge”), from Middle Dutch vracht, vrecht, and Middle Low German vrecht (“cargo, freight; transportation fee”), from Old Saxon frāht, frēht, from Proto-West Germanic *fra- (from Proto-Germanic *fra- (prefix meaning ‘completely, fully’)) + *aihti (from Proto-Germanic *aihtiz (“possessions, property”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eyḱ- (“to come into possession of, obtain; to own, possess”)). The English word can be analysed as for- + aught, and is a doublet of fraught. Cognates * French fret (“cargo, freight; transportation fees; rental of a ship”) * Old English ǣht (“livestock; possession, property; power”) * Old High German frēht (“earnings”) * Portuguese frete (“cargo, freight; transportation fees”) * Spanish flete (“cargo, freight; charter (hire of a vehicle for transporting cargo)”) * Swedish frakt c (“cargo, freight; transportation fees”)