freight

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   the charge for transporting something by common carrier

   We pay the freight.

2. 2
   noun

   The transportation of goods (originally by water; now also (chiefly US) by land); also, the hiring of a vehicle or vessel for such transportation.

   [A]fter ſome Conſideration, that the City of Hamburgh might happen to be as good a Market for our Goods as London, we all took Freight with him, and having put my Goods on board, it was moſt natural for me to put my Steward on board to take care of them, […].

3. 3
   noun

   Goods or items in transport; cargo, luggage.

   The freight shifted and the trailer turned over on the highway.

4. 4
   noun

   Payment for transportation.

   The freight was more expensive for cars than for coal.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Freight entered English in late Middle English from the same medieval Dutch source as fraught: vracht, “ship’s cargo.” The shared origin reflects the older sense of something laden with cargo.

From Late Middle English freight, freght, freyght [and other forms], a variant of fraught, fraght (“transport of goods or people, usually by water; transportation fee; transportation facilities; cargo or passengers of a ship; (figuratively) burden; ballast of a ship; goods; a charge”), from Middle Dutch vracht, vrecht, and Middle Low German vrecht (“cargo, freight; transportation fee”), from Old Saxon frāht, frēht, from Proto-West Germanic *fra- (from Proto-Germanic *fra- (prefix meaning ‘completely, fully’)) + *aihti (from Proto-Germanic *aihtiz (“possessions, property”), ultimately from Prot...

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External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary