MEANING
1. Marked by pronounced tension or anxiety.
2. Filled with adverse possibilities or difficulties, normally in fraught with something.
Use it for
tense shared situations; risk-laden decisionsMove fear from an individual into the situation’s emotional climate.
Words that belong together
- a fraught atmosphere
- fraught negotiations
- fraught with danger
On the page
The waiting room grew fraught after the second alarm.
Their departure became a fraught negotiation over who would stay behind.
Crossing the damaged causeway was fraught with danger.
Nearby words
Related words
Word forms
- Base
- fraught
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Usage notes
Primary category: fear. The anxious sense is especially British; fraught with introduces a burden or danger. Do not use bare fraught to mean full of neutral things. Gradable with more/most; no inflectional endings normally needed.
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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