fraught
pronunciation
How to pronounce fraught in British English:
UK [frɔːt]
How to pronounce fraught in American English:
US [frɔːt]
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- Adjective:
- marked by distress
- filled with or attended with
Word Origin
- fraught
- fraught: [14] Fraught and freight [15] are related, and share the underlying meaning ‘load’. But whereas freight has stayed close to its semantic roots, fraught, which started out as ‘laden’, has moved on via ‘supplied or filled with something’ to specifically ‘filled with anxiety or tension’. It was originally the past participle of a now obsolete verb fraught ‘load a ship’, which was borrowed from Middle Dutch vrachten.This in turn was a derivative of the noun vracht ‘load, cargo’, a variant of vrecht (from which English gets freight). Both vracht and vrecht probably go back to a prehistoric Germanic noun *fraaikhtiz, whose second element *-aikhtiz is related to English owe and own.=> freight
- fraught (adj.)
- late 14c., "freighted, laden, loaded, stored with supplies" (of vessels); figurative use from early 15c.; past participle adjective from obsolete verb fraught "to load (a ship) with cargo," Middle English fraughten (c. 1400), which always was rarer than the past participle, from noun fraught "a load, cargo, lading of a ship" (early 13c.), which is the older form of freight (n.). This apparently is from a North Sea Germanic source, Middle Dutch vrecht, vracht "hire for a ship, freight," or similar words in Middle Low German or Frisian, apparently originally "earnings," from Proto-Germanic *fra-aihtiz "property, absolute possession," from *fra-, here probably intensive + *aigan "be master of, possess" (see owe (v.)). Related: Fraughtage.
Example
- 1. But even from the start , the relationship between secretaries and technology was fraught .
- 2. The taliban are not the only enemy along the fraught borderlands of the afghan war .
- 3. She advocates instead for ongoing communication with kids about their bodies , sexual development and sexual issues , so that the subject is not so fraught .
- 4. Politically , this territory is fraught for mr cameron : not only does it exacerbate coalition tensions with the lib dems ; it also annoys many civil libertarians on his own side .
- 5. But our attitude changed after a particularly fraught phone conversation with ali our intermediary between the gang and the office in london . Apparently the pirates were incredulous that nobody had yet met their demands . New death threats were being issued .