Forms: 6–7 fraight, (6 freith), 7– freight. Pa. t. and pa. pple. 6 freyghted, frayted, 6–7 fraighted, 7– freighted. [f. prec. sb.; cf. FRAUGHT v.]
1. trans. To furnish or load (a vessel) with a cargo; to hire or let out (a vessel) for the carriage of goods and passengers. Also with out and to or for (a place).
1485. in Arnolde, Chron. (1811), 229. For too bye and gader lade and freith and cary awaye.
1555. Eden, Decades (Arb.), 324. Donco, where the marchauntes that trade to Asoph, Capha, and Constantynople, fraight theyr shyppes.
1651. Hobbes, Leviath., II. xxii. 119. With the Merchandise they buy at home, can fraight a Ship, to export it.
1671. Clarendon, Dialog., Tracts (1727), 293. If they who freighted them out, had directed them to other Traffick, they would have returned with more valuable Commodities.
1703. C. Mather, Magn. Chr., I. vi. (1852), 83–4. Whereupon in the year 1646, gathering together almost all the strength which was left them, they built one ship more, which they fraighted for England with the best part of their tradable estates.
1800. Wellesley, in Owen, Desp., 707. The British merchants at this presidency, not having obtained the expected permission to freight their ships to the port of London.
1831. Sir J. Sinclair, Corr., II. 223. An opportunity of making immense sums of money, by freighting their ships to the powers at war, and by acting as commercial agents.
1878. Simpson, Sch. Shaks., I. 120. He [Stucley] proposed to freight as many English vessels as possible by Flemings, Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Italians, and to send them upon long voyages with or without cargo.
b. transf. To load, store. Also fig. of a burden: To bear upon as a load.
1829. Lytton, Devereux, I. vii. Fortune freights not your channel with her hoarded stores, and Pleasure ventures not her silken sails upon your tide.
1838. Sparks, Biog., IX. Eaton, xi. 301. The caravan had been freighted by the Bashaw only to this place.
1892. Talmage, in N. Y. Weekly Witness, 13 Jan., 7/5. All the sins of the past and of the present freighting him.
c. U.S. intr. To freight up: to take in a cargo. fig.
1889. ‘Mark Twain,’ Yank. at Crt. K. Arth. (Tauchn.), I. 128. On their journeys those Britons were used to long fasts, and knew how to bear them; and also how to freight up against probable fasts before starting, after the style of the Indian and the anaconda.
2. To carry or transport (goods) as freight.
1540. Act 32 Hen. VIII., c. 14. Euery brode wollen cloth freyghted to Daunske.
1697. Dampier, Voy., I. xv. 412. Every Man freights his Goods in his own Room; and probably Lodges there, if he be on Board himself.
1881. Henty, Cornet of Horse, xvi. (1888), 160. Von Duyk would have freighted a shipful of presents to Rupert’s friends in England, but the latter would not hear of it.
Hence Freighting vbl. sb.
1672. Essex Papers (Camden), I. 7. I Incourage all I possibly can buildinge of Ships of our owne (for Fraigtinge of Forringhners distresse us).
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., Freighting. A letting out of vessels on freight or hire; one of the principal practices in the trade of the Dutch.
1883. L. Hamilton, Mexican Hand-bk., 67. In the rainy season, the water flowing down from the various ravines and from the Salto, (the source of the San Miguel) fills the arroyo and renders freighting in wagons difficult, but does not impede transit by mules and pack-trains.
attrib. 1769. Burke, Late St. Nation, Wks. 1842, I. 83. The freighting business revived. The ships were fewer, but much larger.
1856. Olmsted, A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States, 396. The roads seemed to be doing a heavy freighting business with cotton.
1879. N. H. Bishop, 4 Months in Sneak-Box, 15. There appears to be no fixed freighting tariff established for boats, and the acquatic tourist is placed at the mercy of agents who too frequently, in their zeal for the interests of their employers, heavily tax the owner of the craft.
