"The drowmound was so hevy fraught / That unethe myght it saylen aught." That verse, from the 14th-century poem Richard Coer de Lion, says that a large ship (a dromond) was so heavily loaded that it could barely sail: originally, something that was "fraught" was laden with freight. Fraught came to Middle English from the Middle Dutch or Middle Low German noun vracht, which meant "load" and which is also the source of freight. For centuries, fraught continued to be used of loaded ships, but its use was eventually broadened for situations that are heavy with tension or some other weighty characteristic.