freight

Meaning

1. The transportation of goods (originally by water; now also (chiefly US) by land); also, the hiring of a vehicle or vessel for such transportation.
2. Goods or items in transport; cargo, luggage.
3. Payment for transportation.
4. A burden, a load.
5. Cultural or emotional associations.
6. Ellipsis of freight train.
7. To load (a vehicle or vessel) with freight (cargo); also, to hire or rent out (a vehicle or vessel) to carry cargo or passengers.
8. To transport (goods).
9. To load or store (goods, etc.).
10. To carry (something) as if it is a burden or load.
11. Chiefly followed by up: to carry as part of a cargo.
12. Freighted; laden.

Etymology / origin

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”)

Related words

Descendant words

• fragt(Danish) (cog)
• vracht(Dutch) (cog)
• frajti(Esperanto) (cog)
• rahti(Finnish) (cog)

Sources

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