fraught
/frɔːt
/adjective
1 (fraught with) (Of a situation or course of action) filled with (something undesirable): marketing any new product is fraught with danger...
- It was always a course fraught with risk for him to do a media interview about a case over which he was still presiding.
- Creating new ventures can be fraught with danger for academics.
- Falling in love and getting married will be fraught with danger.
Synonyms
full of, filled with, swarming with, rife with, thick with, bristling with, charged with, loaded with, brimful of, brimming with;
attended by, accompanied by
2Causing or affected by anxiety or stress: there was a fraught silence she sounded a bit fraught...
- Not a bad story for Scotland and Ireland working together on this very elaborate and, at times, highly fraught project.
- She describes the experience of buying with friends as fraught.
- In Scotland, the balance between the two is often a fraught one.
Synonyms
anxious, worried, upset, distraught, overwrought, agitated, distressed, distracted, desperate, frantic, panic-stricken, panic-struck, panicky;
beside oneself, at one's wits' end, at the end of one's tether, out of one's mind
informal stressed, hassled, wound up, worked up, in a state, in a flap, in a cold sweat, tearing one's hair out
British informal having kittens, in a flat spin, stressy
Origin
Late Middle English, 'laden, equipped', past participle of obsolete fraught 'load with cargo', from Middle Dutch vrachten, from vracht 'ship's cargo'. Compare with freight.
Something fraught is now usually filled with danger or anxiety, but at first the word simply meant ‘laden’ or ‘equipped’. It comes from medieval Dutch vracht ‘ship's cargo’, source also of freight (Late Middle English).