freight
/fɹeɪt/
"freight" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“freight” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #7,230 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #7,230
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 11
- tracked misspellings
- 7
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The transportation of goods (originally by water; now also (chiefly US) by land); also, the hiring of a vehicle or vessel for such transportation.
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 | freight |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /fɹeɪt/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #7,230 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 7 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “freight” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for freight is 7 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /fɹeɪt/. Corpus data places it at rank #7,230 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. 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 freight, with forms such as "feright", "ffreight", and "fregiht". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 7 confusable-pair relationships, "fright", "freighter", "fight", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: 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 … The correct English form is freight, spelled F-R-E-I-G-H-T.
Definition
- 1The transportation of goods (originally by water; now also (chiefly US) by land); also, the hiring of a vehicle or vessel for such transportation.
- 2Goods or items in transport; cargo, luggage.
- 3Payment for transportation.
- 4A burden, a load.
- 5Cultural or emotional associations.
- 6Ellipsis of freight train.
Etymology
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 Proto-Indo-European *h₂eyḱ- (“to come into possession of, obtain; to own, possess”)). The English word can be analysed as for- + aught, and is a doublet of fraught. Cognates * French fret (“cargo, freight; transportation fees; rental of a ship”) * Old English ǣht (“livestock; possession, property; power”) * Old High German frēht (“earnings”) * Portuguese frete (“cargo, freight; transportation fees”) * Spanish flete (“cargo, freight; charter (hire of a vehicle for transporting cargo)”) * Swedish frakt c (“cargo, freight; transportation fees”)
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: feright,ffreight,fregiht,freigght,freighht,freightt,freigth,freihgt,frieght,frreight,rfeight
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of freight - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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
How do you spell "freight"?
What does "freight" mean?
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Using “freight”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is F-R-E-I-G-H-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /fɹeɪt/ (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. freight 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.