Words / C2

FRORT/frɔːt/

Fraught means filled with something unpleasant (fraught with danger/problems) or, of a person or moment, very tense: a fraught meeting. Tense and full of are everyday; freight is cargo — a lookalike. Do not write fraught for a calm, complete risk register.

Meaning

Filled with something unpleasant (fraught with); also very tense and anxious.

Examples

• “The handover was fraught with missing dates and one shared login.”
• “Tense is everyday. Fraught with + noun is the formal pattern. Freight is goods on a lorry. Anxious is the feeling. A labelled risk that is owned is tense perhaps, not fraught, if the dates exist.”

Good to know

Loaded with trouble; very tense. Everyday: tense / full of. Pattern: fraught with. Mix-up: freight. Named, owned risks are not automatically fraught.

Near in meaning

tense

New