fraught
/fɹɔːt/
"fraught" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“fraught” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #24,758 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #24,758
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 11
- tracked misspellings
- 3
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The hire of a boat or ship to transport cargo.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | fraught |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /fɹɔːt/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #24,758 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 3 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “fraught” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for fraught is 7 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /fɹɔːt/. Corpus data places it at rank #24,758 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for fraught, with forms such as "farught", "ffraught", and "fraguht". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 3 confusable-pair relationships, "fright", "freight", "fought", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English fraught, fraght, freght (“transport of goods or people (usually by water); charge for such transport; facilities for such transport; cargo or passengers of a ship; ballast of a ship; goods in general; (figurative) burden; charge”), from … The correct English form is fraught, spelled F-R-A-U-G-H-T.
Definition
- 1The hire of a boat or ship to transport cargo.
- 2Money paid to hire a vessel for this purpose; freight.
- 3The transportation of goods, especially in a boat or ship.
- 4A ship's cargo; freight, lading.
- 5Two bucketfuls.
- 6A burden, a load.
Etymology
From Middle English fraught, fraght, freght (“transport of goods or people (usually by water); charge for such transport; facilities for such transport; cargo or passengers of a ship; ballast of a ship; goods in general; (figurative) burden; charge”), from Middle Dutch vracht, vrecht, or Middle Low German vracht, vrecht (“cargo, freight; charge for transport of goods”), from Proto-Germanic *fra-aihtiz, from *fra- (intensifying prefix) + Proto-Germanic *aihtiz (“acquisition; possessions, property”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eyḱ- (“to come into possession of, obtain; to own, possess”)). Doublet of freight. Cognates * Danish fragt * Old English ǣht (“livestock; property; possession; power”) * Old High German frēht (“earnings”) (modern German fracht) * Swedish frakt
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: farught,ffraught,fraguht,fraugght,fraughht,fraughtt,fraugth,frauhgt,frraught,fruaght,rfaught
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of fraught - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “fraught”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is F-R-A-U-G-H-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /fɹɔːt/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “fright” - see the side-by-side comparison. fraught vs fright
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.