Fraught

How to spell fraught

7 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce fraught

What does fraught mean?

1. adjectiveFilled with or accompanied by something undesirable, typically danger, risk, or difficulty.
2. adjectiveCausing or marked by anxiety, tension, or emotional strain.

Fraught in a sentence

• The merger was fraught with legal complications from the very start.

• The days before the audit were tense and fraught for the whole accounting team.

• Crossing the border without the correct paperwork is fraught with risk.

• Their final conversation was fraught with unspoken resentment.

Where does fraught come from?

Language of origin: Dutch

Fraught began life as a shipping term: it is the past participle of an obsolete English verb 'fraught', meaning 'to load a vessel with cargo'. That verb came into Middle English in the 1300s from Middle Dutch 'vrachten', built on the noun 'vracht', meaning 'cargo' or 'a load carried for hire'. The same Germanic root gives us the modern word 'freight', so a ship 'fraught' with goods was simply one loaded with freight. Over the centuries the literal cargo sense faded, and the participle survived as an adjective meaning 'laden' or 'filled with', which is why we still say a plan is 'fraught with risk'. From there it drifted again to describe people and situations that are tense or full of anxiety, as if weighed down by an emotional load. The unusual 'augh' spelling is the trap; it echoes 'caught' and 'taught' rather than anything in 'freight', its closest relative.

How the word is built

• fraught (past participle of an obsolete verb meaning 'to load a ship', related to 'freight')