Word.ws English Dictionary

freighten

freighten is the obsolete form of frighten.

Meaning of frighten

Verb

frighten (third-person singular simple present frightens, present participle frightening, simple past and past participle frightened)

  1. (transitive) To cause to feel fear; to scare; to cause to feel alarm or fright.
    • Avery puts a sheet over her head, pretending to be a ghost to frighten Emily.
  2. (intransitive) To become scared or alarmed.
    • In fitting the White Leghorns for exhibition, it must be remembered that they are of nervous disposition and frighten easily.1898, Franklane L. Sewell, Ida E. Tilson, “White Leghorns”, in The Poultry Herald Manual[:] A Guide to Successful Poultry Keeping, St. Paul, Minnesota: Webb Publishing Company, page 41

Forms of freighten

third-person singular presentfreightens
present participlefreightening
past participlefreightened
pastfreightened

Questions about freighten

What is freighten the obsolete form of?
Freighten is the obsolete form of frighten.

Words near freighten in the dictionary

  1. freightable
  2. freightage
  3. freightages
  4. freighted
  5. freightedst
  6. freighten
  7. freightening
  8. freightens
  9. freighter
  10. freighters
  11. freightest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: freighten (page history and authors); frighten (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “freighten.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/freighten. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.