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  1. fraught love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Filled with a specified element or elements; charged: an incident fraught with danger; an evening fraught with high drama.
  2. adj. Marked by or causing distress; emotional: "an account of a fraught mother-daughter relationship” ( Francesca Simon).
  3. n. Scots Freight; cargo.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A load; cargo; freight (of a ship).
  2. n. The sum paid for the transportation of a load or cargo. Compare fraught-money.
  3. To lade; load; freight (a ship).
  4. Figuratively, to fill; store; charge.
  5. To form or make up the freight of a vessel; constitute a vessel's freight or cargo.
  6. Freighted; laden; loaded; charged; replete: chiefly in figurative use: as, a vessel richly fraught with goods from India; a scheme fraught with mischief.

Wiktionary

  1. n. obsolete The hire of a ship or boat to transport cargo.
  2. n. obsolete Money paid to hire a ship or boat to transport cargo; freight
  3. n. obsolete The transportation of goods, especially in a ship or boat.
  4. n. obsolete A ship's cargo, lading or freight.
  5. n. Scotland A load; a burden.
  6. n. Scotland Two bucketfuls (of water).
  7. v. transitive To load (a ship, cargo etc.).
  8. adj. Laden.
  9. adj. Furnished, equipped.
  10. adj. figuratively Loaded-up, charged or accompanied.
  11. adj. Distressed.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. obsolete A freight; a cargo.
  2. adj. Freighted; laden; filled; stored; charged.
  3. v. obsolete To freight; to load; to burden; to fill; to crowd.

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. filled with or attended with
  2. adj. marked by distress

Etymologies

  1. From Middle English, from Middle Dutch vracht or Middle Low German vracht ("freight money"), ultimately from Proto-Germanic *fra- (intensive prefix) + Proto-Germanic *aihtiz (“possession”), from Proto-Indo-European *eik'- (“to possess”). Cognate with Old High German frēht ("earnings"), Old English ǣht ("owndom"). More at for-, own. (Wiktionary)
  2. Middle English, past participle of fraughten, to load, from fraght, cargo; see freight, and from Middle Dutch vrachten, to load (from vracht, freight; see aik- in Indo-European roots). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “Surely you appreciate that for those who regularly attack Israel and its suporters, “Likud” is a label fraught with negative implications that have nothing to do with the political realities within Israel.”

    The Volokh Conspiracy » Human Rights Watch Update

  • “COOPER: Occupation is certainly a term fraught with -- with political difficulties and -- and -- and social difficulties here.”

    CNN Transcript Jul 25, 2006

  • “As a consumer of books, sometimes in fraught times the “comfort reads” e.g. books by familiar authors, offer just that.”

    Writer Unboxed » Blog Archive » The same only different

  • “Every aspect of my relationship with this country's largest telco in fraught at the moment.”

    I guess it is my fault for using telstra

  • “Several phone calls fraught with irritation and worry followed before Mr. Bill's undisclosed location was disclosed.”

    Georgianne Nienaber: Mr. Bill: "Oh No, Fix the Coast you Broke, Shell Oil!"

  • “In fact, so peril-fraught is cyberspace indeed that I must never permit my pristine browser to trespass there.”

    October 12th, 2005

  • “I do not know the meaning of the word fraught, but it is frequently used in history in that connection, and I throw it in, believing that it is a pretty good word.”

    How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887

  • “As she sought to defend herself and seize control of a debate that has been boiling for days, Ms. Palin awakened a new controversy by invoking a phrase fraught with religious symbolism about the false accusation used by anti-Semites of Jews murdering Christian children.”

    NYT > Home Page

  • “When asked for her take on feminism, Beardsley tells the Reader's Michael Miner, "That's such a word fraught with interpretation and meaning.”

    Politics

  • “Although that is standard in many parliamentary democracies like Germany, it's so rare in Britain - where the last time it happened was 1974 - that Britons use a special term fraught with the suggestion of crisis: "a hung Parliament.”

    The Shad Plank

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synonyms (11)

Words with the same meaning

  1. freight
  2. cargo
  1. freighted
  2. laden
  1. filled
  2. stored
  1. charged
  2. load
  1. burden
  2. fill
  1. crowd

equivalents (2)

Other words for ‘fraught’

  1. full
  1. troubled

same context (22)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. replete
  2. pregnant
  3. lade
  4. alight
  1. rife
  2. inconsistent
  3. intoxicated
  4. oppress
  1. dissatisfied
  2. perplex
  3. commensurate
  4. problematic
  1. risky
  2. prone
  3. unpopular
  4. unsettle
  1. unable
  2. distraught
  3. tense
  4. liable
  1. alive
  2. repugnant

rhymes (29)

Words with the same terminal sound

  1. Lot
  2. Mayotte
  3. Wat
  4. begot
  5. bought
  1. brought
  2. caught
  3. distraught
  4. fought
  5. gaut
  1. haught
  2. haut
  3. lot
  4. marotte
  5. naught
  1. ought
  2. overbought
  3. overwrought
  4. reshot
  5. rethought
  1. rought
  2. snot
  3. sot
  4. sought
  5. taught
  1. taut
  2. thought
  3. wat
  4. wrought

reverse dictionary (36)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. fraight
  2. fraught
  3. freight
  4. unfraught
  5. direful
  6. doomful
  7. dubious
  1. hairy
  2. blessed
  3. touch and go
  4. unquiet
  5. meaningful
  6. dicey
  7. pregnant
  1. parlous
  2. perilous
  3. precarious
  4. supercharged
  5. swamp
  6. uneasy
  7. critical
  1. fluid
  2. grave
  3. dodgy
  4. nervous
  5. queasy
  6. anxious
  7. chanceful
  1. chancy
  2. charged
  3. desperate
  4. dire
  5. doubtful
  6. baleful
  7. fatal
  1. insecurity

tags (1)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. -raught

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Lists

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Comments

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  • hernesheir Better a fraught than a draught, of moonshine, I always say.
    fraught - two bucketsful. --from the definitions. Feb 15, 2013

  • rolig The name Varyag is itself fraught with history, which is something the Time article fails to mention. It is the Russian word for "Varangian", a group related to the Vikings. Aug 15, 2011

  • cbeard The Varyag's launch comes at a fraught time.

    Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2087973,00.html#ixzz1V1mCe73B
    Aug 14, 2011

  • Noelle Knight "I fought conflicting impulses to scream, burst into tears, or run...After a long, fraught pause, Alcide said, 'Let's get back in the truck.'" -Club Dead, by Charlaine Harris Feb 5, 2011

  • bilby Yes. Beware frogapplause, our very own gunslinging, wafter-staling, mud-wrestling, flatmate-stomping conduit to the dark side. Nov 22, 2008

  • dimã©lion i wholeheartedly concur with this "fr-" theory. Nov 22, 2008

  • reesetee I'd like to be fraught with chocolate right now. Jul 21, 2008

  • rolig Sorry to be late for this interesting conversation. I'm persuaded by JMP, qroqqa, and the OED that "fraught" originally meant "full, laden, etc." in all senses (i.e. "freighted") but that eventually its meaning narrowed, in general usage, to "filled with tension, distress, risk, and so on". Bilby's determination to resuscitate the older, broader meaning is commendable, but I am doubtful of its success. To mean the interesting question is, why did "fraught" narrow its meaning precisely to this noirish content. My guess is not so much that it sounds like "taut" (there is nothing inherently ominous about tautness) but because it seems to align (and perhaps confuse) itself with other dark "fr-" participial words: frayed, afraid, frightened. Folk etymology is a powerful force in the development of meaning. Jul 20, 2008

  • dontcry Do you see the cup as half fraught or half empty?
    He's really fraught of himself.
    I'm fraught, I can't eat another bite.
    You're so fraught of shit your eyes are brown.
    I can't take on that project, my plate is fraught. Jul 17, 2008

  • johnmperry (I think that quote readsa whole lot better if you insert a mental comma after Thither full Jul 17, 2008

  • yarb I'm with qroqqa. It can mean full (these days), but only in a few specific circumstances. People aren't fraught with Greek anymore.

    Look at the quotation from PL by brtom a year ago: if this means "full", Satan is "full full" with mischievous revenge (obv. the first full isn't the same as our modern full, but still). Jul 17, 2008

  • bilby I think fraught can mean full. Words can mean what you want them to mean: the Alice in Wonderland principle. I'm fraught with joy at the rediscovery of this word. A few hundred years of dormancy is no barrier to effective modern use, in my opinion. Isn't somebody growing wheat with seeds recovered from Pompei? Jul 17, 2008

  • asativum There's glory for you, c_b! Jul 17, 2008

  • chained_bear You know, qroqqa, all respect and everything, but I'm going to say "fraught with beans" and "fraught with hot air" and all sorts of fraughttage misuses from now on. In general I believe strongly that we should all use this word as often as possible. Take back the fraught! Jul 16, 2008

  • dontcry Yes, jmp, but loaded with "Utensils of War" (bad) ...not cookies (good)! Jul 16, 2008

  • darqueau this isn't the only place where a lot of fraughttage is going on...
    see gambol Jul 16, 2008

  • johnmperry And the citation:1671: And Waggons fraught with Utensils of War. to me has a strictly literal meaning - loaded with. Jul 16, 2008

  • johnmperry I wonder what a "full-fraught pincushion" is. How it's both full and fraught, and with what?

    "Fraughted" is interesting, because it seems like it should have been fraughtened. Jul 16, 2008

  • sionnach whimper Jul 16, 2008

  • qroqqa 'Fraught' overlaps with 'full' in that you can use them in the same narrow context: 'fraught with danger', 'full of danger'. But you can't use it as if it meant just "full"—as in 'full of beans', 'full up to the top', 'full from eating', 'inflate till it's full', etc. etc.

    In fact the original sense "laden, full" scarcely seems to have survived till 1700. Here are the latest applicable prose quotations the OED has for various uses. (Poetic uses of course lingered longer.)

    1666: Smaller Vessels that lay fraught for the Streights.
    1668: The ships are said to be richly fraughted.
    1671: And Waggons fraught with Utensils of War.
    1755: Liberty, fraught with blessings as it is, when unabused, has, perhaps, been abused to our destruction.
    1786: The little princess had excited her curiosity by the full-fraught pincushion.
    1798: From these retreats, he often returned fraughted with light.
    1803: He returned to Oxford full fraught with Greek.

    The original sense was last used literally in 1668—the absurd claim that it still means this is three hundred and forty years out of date!
    Jul 16, 2008

  • sionnach Well, who doesn't enjoy a bit of early-morning fraughttage to start the day?

    If my earlier question came across as snarky, my apologies. Didn't mean it that way. And I think I understand what qroqqa is saying when it is used absolutely. But I seem to come across it more often in the "fraught with X" kind of usage, where X is something like danger/difficulty/tension/complexity. Which I interpret as being essentially the same as "full of X". Jul 16, 2008

  • chained_bear I think it's generally used in that way, but only through some trick of archaic grammar. "Marked by distress" is just the most perfect definition of it. Thanks, WeirdNET!

    ptero... will you please add that so I can shamelessly rip it off? Thanks. Jul 16, 2008

  • pterodactyl Yeah, chained_bear -- there's a whole lot of fraughttage going on. Jul 16, 2008

  • dontcry I've always thought fraught meant "full" or "filled with" -- but never with anything "good." Jul 16, 2008

  • chained_bear I think this page is pretty fraught. Jul 16, 2008

  • sionnach I'm pretty certain it doesn't and can't mean "full"

    Sorry, qroqqa, I don't understand your reasoning here at all. Why not? And if not that, then what does it mean? You don't really address that.

    I have to say that jmp's comments seem to make far more sense than yours here. But then, I confess to a certain MEGO* reaction to jargon like "prepositional phrase complement".

    *: 'my eyes glaze over'.

    But maybe I'm missing something. Jul 16, 2008

  • johnmperry Etymology suggest two different sources:
    Middle English 'fraughten'
    Middle Dutch 'vrachten' Jul 16, 2008

  • johnmperry How can "fraught with danger" not mean "filled with danger".

    "Common and standard" doesn't mean "correct". But where/when does incorrect become correct? I often hear people on tv saying "between you and I" but that can't ever be correct, however common it is. Jul 16, 2008

  • qroqqa I'm pretty certain it doesn't and can't mean "full", which seems to be a completely obsolete sense. The OED doesn't give any post-1800 prose citations for that sense. From then on, it's always 'fraught with danger', 'fraught with difficulty', etc.— the modern senses when used with 'with' (i.e. with a prepositional phrase complement). Checking Google and the British National Corpus confirms this.

    Used absolutely (i.e. without a PP complement), it seems to always have the ordinary modern sense "tense, difficult, distressing". This is a recent sense—the unrevised OED (2nd. ed.) only has quotations back to 1966—but it's clearly a very common and standard meaning. BNC quotations include:

    The whole fraught episode must signify something.

    And then the fraught silence would modulate into conciliatory monosyllable, and back to their peaceful co-existence.

    Out of this fraught legal and financial tangle the bureau worker must work with the client to create order and stability.

    Obviously as you get a little bit closer to it it gets rather more fraught.

    —So this is what the word actually means. Jul 16, 2008

  • johnmperry frequently misused, because it sounds like 'taut'. Actually means "full". If adjectives could be classified as transitive and intransitive, then this would be intransitive, in that it needs to be followed by a preposition (with).

    Middle English, past participle of obsolete verb fraughten, to load. Cf freight Jul 16, 2008

  • brtom Thither full fraught with mischievous revenge,
    Accurst, and in a cursed hour he hies.
    Milton, Paradise Lost II Dec 18, 2006

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