# freight

Pronunciation: say "FRAYT" /fɹeɪt/

## Noun

1. Goods carried from one place to another by ship, train, truck or aircraft; cargo.
   - Simple: Goods that are carried from place to place by ship, train, truck or plane.
   - _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._
2. 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.
   - Simple: The moving of goods by ship, truck, train or plane, or the renting of a ship or truck to move 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._
3. Short for freight train. — Ellipsis of freight train.
   - Simple: Short for freight train. It means a train that carries goods.
   - _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._
4. The amount paid for having something transported from one place to another.
   - Simple: The money you pay to have something carried somewhere.
   - _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._
7. The cultural or emotional associations that something carries with it.
   - Simple: The feelings and ideas that people connect with something.
   - _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._
8. A load or burden that someone or something has to carry. *(literary)*
   - Simple: A load that a person or thing 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._

## Verb

5. To transport goods, carrying them from one place to another.
   - Simple: To carry or send goods 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._
6. 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.
   - Simple: To fill a ship, truck or anything with a load, or hire or rent out a ship to carry goods or people.
   - _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._
9. To carry something along as though it were a burden or load. *(literary)*
   - Simple: To carry something as if it were a heavy 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._

## Verb

10. 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. *(rare, US)*
   - Simple: Usually with up: to load up on something, such as food, before a time when you will not have it.

## Adjective

11. Loaded with cargo or goods, or more generally carrying a load. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: Full of goods, or carrying a load.

## Origin

**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.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/freight (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).