freight

FRAYT/fɹeɪt/

Pluralfreights (some meanings)

Verbfreights, freighting, freighted

11 meanings of freight

Practice

1
cargonoununcountable
Goods that are carried from place to place by ship, train, truck or plane.
Workers loaded the freight onto the train before dawn.
The truck was full of freight for the new grocery store.
Similarcargo, goods, shipment, consignment
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2
noununcountable
The moving of goods by ship, truck, train or plane, or the renting of a ship or truck to move them.
They sent the heavy boxes by freight because it cost less.
Many jobs in our town come from rail freight.
Similarshipping, haulage, carriage
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3
nouncountableabbreviationellipsis
Short for freight train. It means a train that carries goods.
A long freight rolled past while we waited at the crossing.
We could hear the night freight from our beds.
Note
4
shipping costnouncountable or uncountable
The money you pay to have something carried somewhere.
We paid the freight when the new sofa arrived at our door.
The freight on the piano came to more than we expected.
Note
5
send goodsverbtransitive
To carry or send goods from one place to another.
They freight apples to stores all over the state.
Last fall the farm freighted its corn to the city by train.
Similarship, transport, haul, carry, convey

Less common meanings

6
verbtransitive
To fill a ship, truck or anything with a load, or hire or rent out a ship to carry goods or people.
The traders freight their boat with rice and sail it down the river.
Some poets freight every line with heavy meaning.
Similarload, lade, charter
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7
deeper meaningnounfigurativelyuncountable
The feelings and ideas that people connect with something.
Like a suitcase of feelings that a word carries everywhere it goes.
For my grandmother, that old song has a lot of emotional freight.
The word "home" carries extra freight for people who have lost theirs.
Similarbaggage, resonance, significance
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8
nounliteraryfigurativelycountable
A load that a person or thing has to carry.
The branches bent low under their freight of apples.
The tired donkey walked slowly under its freight of firewood.
Similarload, burden, weight
9
carry (feelings)verbliteraryfigurativelytransitive
To carry something as if it were a heavy load.
Those two short words freight years of anger.
He still freights the memory of that day wherever he goes.
Similarbear, drag, lug
10
stock upverbrarefigurativelyUSintransitive
Usually with up: to load up on something, such as food, before a time when you will not have it.
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!”
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11
adjectiveobsolete
Full of goods, or 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]”Here, freight means loaded or filled with goods, so every ship was full.
Note

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

It comes from an old English word meaning cargo or the cost of carrying goods. That word came from old Dutch and German words for cargo, and it is related to the word "fraught."

Meanings 5–6, 9–11

The verb comes from an old English word meaning "to load a ship," made from the noun for cargo. The adjective comes from the past form of that verb.