freight

FRAYT/fɹeɪt/

Pluralfreights (some meanings)

Verbfreights, freighting, freighted

11 meanings of freight

Practice

1
cargonoununcountable
Goods carried from one place to another by ship, train, truck or aircraft; cargo.
The freight came loose in the storm and slid across the deck.
Airlines earn extra money by carrying freight in the holds of passenger jets.
Similarcargo, goods, shipment, consignment
Note
John Donne set it against ballast, the weight that only steadies a ship, in a sermon preached in January 1626: discretion is the ballast that “carries us steady,” but zeal “is the very Fraight, the Cargason, the Merchandise it self” that enriches. The word has since come ashore, to goods carried by rail and road.
Checked 3 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
John Donne preached the sermon in January 1626; its historical 1625 dating uses the old year convention. doktori.btk.elte.hu
Ballast is weight used to steady a ship. en.wikipedia.org
Donne contrasts discretion as stabilizing ballast with zeal as enriching freight, using the quoted wording. en.wiktionary.org
Freight extended from water transport to land transport. en.wiktionary.org
2
noununcountable
The carrying of goods from place to place, originally by water and now also by land or air; also, the hiring of a vehicle or vessel to carry them.
Rail freight has grown as shippers look for cheaper ways to move goods across the continent.
The merchants arranged freight on a Dutch ship for their whole cargo of wool.
Similarshipping, haulage, carriage
Note
To take freight with someone was to hire room on their vessel: in Defoe's The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719), the narrator's party “all took Freight with him,” and his goods went on board. Late Middle English freight was a variant of fraught, which already covered transport, its fee, a ship's cargo or passengers, and figuratively a burden. So the fee and the burden came with the word rather than after it.
Checked 3 Nov 2026 · 6 facts
Taking freight with someone meant arranging transport aboard their vessel for oneself and one's goods. en.wiktionary.org
Daniel Defoe wrote The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, first published in 1719. en.wikipedia.org
The narrator describes his party taking freight and loading his goods, using the quoted words. en.wiktionary.org
Late Middle English freight was a variant of fraught. en.wiktionary.org
Middle English fraught already had senses covering transport, its charge, cargo or passengers, and figurative burden. en.wiktionary.org
The fee and burden senses belonged to the inherited word history; this is an inference from the predecessor's recorded meanings. en.wiktionary.org
3
nouncountableabbreviationellipsis
Short for freight train.
The eastbound freight waited on a siding while the passenger train went through.
He hopped a freight heading west with nothing but a coat and a few dollars.
Note
Railroad speech, first in the US, drops train and lets the word name the vehicle itself. Unlike freight as cargo, it is countable and readily takes a time or direction in front. Booth Tarkington's The Gentleman from Indiana (1899) has empty cars “waiting for the one-o'clock freight,” and J. Geoffrey Todd's “Impressions of Railroading in the United States” (1961) has “two westbound freights” in the vicinity.
Checked 3 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
The train sense originated in US railroad usage as an ellipsis of freight train. en.wiktionary.org
Booth Tarkington wrote The Gentleman from Indiana, first published in 1899. en.wikipedia.org
Tarkington's novel describes empty cars waiting for the one-o'clock freight. gutenberg.org
J. Geoffrey Todd's article appeared in 1961 and describes two westbound freights in the vicinity. en.wiktionary.org
4
shipping costnouncountable or uncountable
The amount paid for having something transported from one place to another.
The buyer agreed to pay the freight on the shipment of steel.
Under the contract, the shipowner earned no freight until the cargo reached port safely.
Note
Carriers earn it and shippers pay it, and a ship is said to earn her freight. Judge John Lowell of the Circuit Court in Massachusetts put the rule plainly in 1881: to earn freight there must be "either a right delivery, or a due and proper offer to deliver the goods." The fee attaches with of: Defoe has a charterer offer to "pay the Freight of" another loading.
Checked 3 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
John Lowell served as a circuit judge in Massachusetts in 1881. fjc.gov
Lowell's quoted ruling dates to 1881. en.wiktionary.org
Lowell used the quoted wording about earning freight. en.wiktionary.org
Defoe depicts a prospective charterer offering to pay the freight of another loading. gutenberg.org
5
send goodsverbtransitive
To transport goods, carrying them from one place to another.
It is cheaper to freight heavy machinery by rail than by road.
The company freights fresh fruit from South America in refrigerated containers.
Similarship, transport, haul, carry, convey

Less common meanings

6
verbtransitive
To load a ship or vehicle with goods, or more generally to fill something with a load; also, to hire or rent out a ship or vehicle to carry goods or passengers.
Few merchants could afford to freight a whole ship on their own.
The novelist freights even the smallest exchange between the two sisters with years of unspoken rivalry.
Similarload, lade, charter
Note
The vessel is the object here: you freight a ship, and the goods go into it. Hobbes writes “fraight a Ship” in Leviathan (1651), keeping close to Late Middle English fraughten, which already meant both to load a ship and to hire one. Bulwer-Lytton turns the construction around in 1829, putting the cargo in object position and the ships after upon: they “freight their wealth upon a hundred vessels.”
Checked 3 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
Thomas Hobbes wrote Leviathan, first published in 1651. en.wikipedia.org
Leviathan contains the exact words “fraight a Ship,” with the ship as the verb's object. en.wikisource.org
The verb derives from Late Middle English forms related to fraughten, which meant both loading and hiring a ship. en.wiktionary.org
Bulwer-Lytton's Devereux was first published in 1829. en.wikipedia.org
The quoted construction occurs in Devereux, with wealth as the object and vessels following upon; Isora speaks the words. gutenberg.org
7
deeper meaningnounfigurativelyuncountable
The cultural or emotional associations that something carries with it.
After the trial, the town's name took on emotional freight that its residents never asked for.
Few symbols carry as much historical freight as a national flag.
Similarbaggage, resonance, significance
Note
Words and symbols are what carry it, and it usually stands as a mass noun, often with an adjective in front: emotional freight, cultural freight, historical freight. That marks it off from the plain burden, which can be counted and takes of, as in Wordsworth's “freight of slippers.”
Checked 3 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
Wordsworth uses the exact phrase “freight of slippers” in The Prelude. gutenberg.org
8
nounliteraryfigurativelycountable
A load or burden that someone or something has to carry.
By September the old pear tree bent under its freight of fruit.
He came home from the war with a freight of memories he never spoke about.
Similarload, burden, weight
9
carry (feelings)verbliteraryfigurativelytransitive
To carry something along as though it were a burden or load.
A single word can freight decades of resentment between two families.
For years after the accident she freighted her guilt from one city to the next, unable to set it down.
Similarbear, drag, lug
10
stock upverbrarefigurativelyUSintransitive
Usually followed by up: to take on a load or supply of something, such as food, before a time when it will be lacking; to stock up.
Experience freightest for a better life. The folk that comes not with us have offended In that for which one Cæsar, triumphing, Heard himself called in contumely, 'Queen.'
1867, Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
On their journeys those Britons were used to long fasts, and knew how to bear them; and also how to freight up against probable fasts before starting, after the style of the Indian and the anaconda.
1889, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], “Freemen!”
Note
This is an American verb that usually takes up: you freight up the way you might stock up, taking on now what a hard stretch will deny you later. Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee (1889) has Britons who knew “how to freight up against probable fasts before starting, after the style of the Indian and the anaconda,” each traveler his own cargo. With up the verb needs no object, and against names the need being provided for.
Checked 3 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
This American intransitive use of freight usually takes up. en.wiktionary.org
Mark Twain wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, first published in 1889. en.wikipedia.org
The novel contains the quoted wording about Britons preparing for fasts. gutenberg.org
The quotation uses freight up without a direct object and against to introduce the anticipated deprivation. gutenberg.org
11
adjectiveobsolete
Loaded with cargo or goods, or more generally carrying a load.
[H]is ſouldiers, ſeeing great prizes brought out of the enemies Land, and every ſhip freight therewith; were mightily incenſed and ſet on fire with a burning deſire to be tranſported over thither with all ſpeed poſſible.
1659, Livy, “[Book XXIX]”
Note
Older English could drop the ending and use the bare form where we now write freighted or laden. Philemon Holland's translation of Livy has soldiers watching prizes brought out of enemy land, "every ship freight therewith." Read it as freighted when it turns up in older prose; in new writing it would look like a slip, so use freighted or laden instead.
Checked 3 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
Historical English used freight as an adjective or participial form meaning freighted or laden. en.wiktionary.org
Philemon Holland translated Livy’s Roman history into English. en.wikipedia.org
Holland’s translation describes soldiers seeing prizes brought from enemy territory and contains the words every ship freight therewith. en.wiktionary.org

Practice

Can you tell the meanings of freight apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.

Origins

Meanings 1–4, 7–8

In Late Middle English, freight was a variant of fraught, meaning cargo, the carrying of goods or people, or the fee paid for it. Its sources are Middle Dutch vracht and Middle Low German vrecht, from Old Saxon frāht, built on Proto-West Germanic *fra- (“fully”) and *aihti (“possessions”).

Meanings 5–6, 9–11

The verb goes back to Late Middle English freighten, a variant of fraughten (“to load or hire a ship”), built from the noun fraught or from Middle Dutch vrachten. The adjective comes from Middle English freght, the past participle of fraughten, or is a shortening of freighted.