freight
Part of speech: verb
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: The verb is derived from Late Middle English freighten, freghten, a variant of fraughten, fraghten (“to load (a ship with cargo or passengers); to hire (a ship) for transporting goods; to provide fully (with goods, money, etc.); to stow away”), and then either:
* from fraught, fraght (noun) (see etymology 1) + -en (suffix forming the infinitive form of verbs); or
* from Middle Dutch vrachten, vrechten (“to load (a ship with cargo or passengers); to hire (a ship) for transporting goods, to fraught”), from vracht, vrecht (noun) (see etymology 1) + -en (suffix forming the infinitive form of verbs).
The adjective is:
* derived from Middle English freght, freight, freyght, the past participle of fraughten (verb) (see above); and/or
* a contraction of freighted, the past participle of the verb.
Inflected forms:
form: freights
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: freighting
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: freighted
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: freighted
pos: verb
tags: past
form: no-table-tags
pos: verb
tags: table-tags
form: glossary
pos: verb
tags: inflection-template
form: freight
pos: verb
tags: infinitive
form: freight
pos: verb
tags: first-person
present
singular
form: freighted
pos: verb
tags: first-person
past
singular
form: freight
pos: verb
tags: present
second-person
singular
form: freightest
pos: verb
tags: archaic
present
second-person
singular
form: freighted
pos: verb
tags: past
second-person
singular
form: freightedst
pos: verb
tags: archaic
past
second-person
singular
form: freights
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: freighteth
pos: verb
tags: archaic
present
singular
third-person
form: freighted
pos: verb
tags: past
singular
third-person
form: freight
pos: verb
tags: plural
present
form: freighted
pos: verb
tags: past
plural
form: freight
pos: verb
tags: present
subjunctive
form: freighted
pos: verb
tags: past
subjunctive
form: freight
pos: verb
tags: imperative
present
form: -
pos: verb
tags: imperative
past
form: freighting
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: freighted
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
Senses:
gloss: To load (a vehicle or vessel) with freight (cargo); also, to hire or rent out (a vehicle or vessel) to carry cargo or passengers.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: It is true, there be few Merchants, that with the Merchandiſe they buy at home, can fraight a Ship, to export it; or with that they buy abroad, to bring it home; and have therefore need to joyn together in one Society; […]
If a Factor do receive a ſum of Mony of the owner of a Ship, in conſideration that he freighteth the ſaid Ship for a Voyage, promiſing to repay the ſaid Mony at the return of the ſaid Voyage; if the ſaid Factor hath freighted this Ship for another mans Account, this Merchant is to have the benefit of this Mony during the time; […]
[T]hey who freight their wealth upon a hundred vessels are more liable, Morton, are they not, to the peril of the winds and waves, than they who venture it only upon one?
Pearl, whose activity of spirit never flagged, had been at no loss for amusement while her mother talked with the old gatherer of herbs. At first, as already told, she had flirted fancifully with her own image in a pool of water, beckoning the phantom forth, and — as it declined to venture — seeking a passage for herself into its sphere of impalpable earth and unattainable sky. Soon finding, however, that either she or the image was unreal, she turned elsewhere for better pastime. She made little boats out of birch-bark, and freighted them with snail-shells, and sent out more ventures on the mighty deep than any merchant in New England ; but the larger part of them foundered near the shore.
gloss: To transport (goods).
pos: verb
tags: transitive
gloss: To load or store (goods, etc.).
pos: verb
tags: broadly
transitive
examples: [W]hat though it is thou [i.e., sensibility] that rendereſt anguiſh more frequent, that filleſt the eye with the ſympathetic tear! yet is it not thou that ſwelleſt it with the tear of joy, and freighteſt the heart beyond the power of utterance,— […]
Fortune freights not your channel with her hoarded stores, and Pleasure ventures not her silken sails upon your tide; […]
Love, that fulfilleth his heart with glee,
 Love, that freighteth his breast with sighs,
 Love that must madden both you and me:— […]
gloss: To carry (something) as if it is a burden or load.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
transitive
gloss: Chiefly followed by up: to carry as part of a cargo.
pos: verb
tags: US
also
figuratively
intransitive
examples: How often, when those hopes are greatest,
 The bark that bears them must not be
 Trusted with more than what thou freightest
 For sun-lit hour and summer sea:
 Who, when the waves are high and dark,
 Could steer, if freighted deep, such bark?
Experience freightest for a better life.
 The folk that comes not with us have offended
 In that for which one Cæsar, triumphing,
 Heard himself called in contumely, 'Queen.'
On their journeys those Britons were used to long fasts, and knew how to bear them; and also how to freight up against probable fasts before starting, after the style of the Indian and the anaconda.
Related words: fraught
Derived words: afreight
freightage
freighted
freighter
freighting
Translations: