fraught

Charles Doyle cdoyle at UGA.EDU
Fri Jun 19 14:04:49 UTC 2009


Maybe rather than being elliptical for the idiomatic phrase, the use of "fraught" just recovers the older sense of 'freighted' ('burdened' or 'carrying baggage')?

--Charlie
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---- Original message ----
>Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 08:59:13 -0400
>From: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>Subject: fraught
>
>I can't find it in the Archives.  Short for "fraught with difficulties or complications." Here's an ex. from a learned colleague:
>
>2009 Brian Boyd _On the Origin of Stories_ (Cambridge: Belknap) 56: If cooperation is is fairly easy to establish, yet already fraught, among close kin, how can it extend even among non-kin?
>
>No earlier instance of "fraught" in the book.  My impression is that it's becoming a bit faddish in the media.
>
>JL

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