Fraughts

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Characterized by a load or burden, especially when accompanied by anxiety or difficulty
2. filled with challenges or risks that can cause distress
3. often implies a sense of being weighed down mentally or emotionally by complications

Etymology: "Fraughts" is simply the plural of "fraught," and the plural of a noun for filled-with-worry is rare in practice, so the interest lies in the word "fraught" itself. Its earliest sense was entirely practical: a Middle English noun meaning the transport of goods or people, usually by water, and the charge for that transport. It was the cargo itself, too, and the ballast a ship carried. The word came into English from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German "vracht," meaning cargo or freight, which traces back to a Germanic compound whose second element meant something acquired or possessed. The adjective grew out of the verb. Middle English "fraughten" meant to hire a ship for carrying goods or to load one with cargo, and its past participle, "fraught," meant loaded or burdened. A ship laden with freight was "fraught," and the figurative sense of being weighed down or charged with something followed naturally. Over the centuries that burden became emotional, so a situation or person heavy with danger, tension or anxiety came to be called fraught.

Synonyms: loads, shipments, cargoes, freights, batches