Word of the Day

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"The drowmound was so hevy fraught / That unethe myght it saylen aught." That verse, from the 14th-century poem "Richard Coer de Lion," says that a large ship (a dromond) was so heavily loaded that it could barely sail. That's the first instance on record of the adjective "fraught." The word came to Middle English from the Middle Dutch or Middle Low German noun "vracht," which meant "load" and which is also the source of the word "freight." For centuries, "fraught" was used only of loaded ships, but its use eventually broadened. American English speakers are most likely to encounter "fraught" as part of the phrase "fraught with," meaning "full of or accompanied by." The "uneasy" sense of "fraught" is more common in British English than in U.S. English.