freight  (fr āt)
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n.1. Goods carried by a vessel or vehicle, especially by a commercial carrier; cargo. 2. A burden; a load. 3. a. Commercial transportation of goods. b. The charge for transporting goods. Also called freightage. 4. A railway train carrying goods only. tr.v. freight·ed, freight·ing, freights 1. To convey commercially as cargo. 2. To load with goods to be transported. 3. To imbue with a specified element or elements: freighted her words with innuendo.
[Middle English fraught, freight, from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German vracht, vrecht; see aik- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.] |
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2019 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices
Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:
Indo-European Roots
Semitic Roots
The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.
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