Freighter

How to spell freighter

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce freighter

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does freighter mean?

1. nounA large ship or aircraft designed to carry cargo rather than passengers.

Freighter in a sentence

• The freighter was loaded with thousands of steel containers before dawn.

• A converted freighter now hauls grain across the lake every summer.

Where does freighter come from?

Language of origin: Dutch

This word grew out of the noun 'freight', which English borrowed in the late 1300s from Middle Dutch and Middle Low German 'vrecht' or 'vracht', meaning the money paid for carrying goods, and by extension the cargo itself. The Low Countries were Europe's great shipping hub, so the language of seaborne trade naturally flowed into English along with the goods. The agent suffix '-er' was later attached to mean 'a vessel that carries freight', a sense that became common in the 1800s as large cargo steamships took to the seas. The spelling trap lives in the silent 'gh' and the 'ei' vowel: the 'eigh' here sounds like a long 'ay', exactly as it does in the unrelated 'eight' and 'weigh', which is why writers reach for the wrong vowel order. Remembering that 'freighter' simply adds '-er' to the older trade word 'freight' keeps the awkward middle letters in place.

How the word is built

• freight (cargo carried for payment, from Middle Dutch vrecht)
• -er (agent suffix: a thing that does something)