freights

Noun

freight (usually uncountable, plural freights)

1. (usually) The transportation of goods (originally by water; now also (chiefly US) by land); also, the hiring of a vehicle or vessel for such transportation.
   • [A]fter ſome Conſideration, that the City of Hamburgh might happen to be as good a Market for our Goods as London, we all took Freight with him, and having put my Goods on board, it was moſt natural for me to put my Steward on board to take care of them, […]1719, [Daniel Defoe], The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe; […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC, page 372
2. (usually) Goods or items in transport; cargo, luggage.
   • The freight shifted and the trailer turned over on the highway.

   Synonyms:

   lading

3. (countable, usually) Payment for transportation.
   • The freight was more expensive for cars than for coal.
4. (countable, figuratively, usually) A burden, a load.
   • Thus Apple Trees, whoſe Trunks are ſtrong to bear
     Their ſpreading Boughs, exert themſelves in Air:
     Want no supply, but ſtand ſecure alone,
     Not truſting foreign Forces, but their own:
     'Till with the ruddy freight the bending Branches groan.1697, Virgil, “The Second Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 89, lines...
5. (figuratively, specifically, usually) Cultural or emotional associations.
   • Ideally, those engaged in contributing to that discourse would have some awareness of the emotional forces which may be called into play by the simple appearance in print or a broadcast clip of a phrase built around the word 'freedom'. This may seem to be a quite unrealistic aim, until we note that...2007, Barry Richards, “Poor Emotional Governance”, in Emotional Governance: Politics, Media and Terror, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, →DOI, →ISBN, part III (The Search for Connection)...

See all 11 meanings of freight