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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 22, 2026 is:
fraught • \FRAWT\ • adjective
Fraught describes something that causes or involves a lot of emotional stress or worry. When fraught is used in the phrase “fraught with,” it means “full of something bad or unwanted.”
// The siblings had a fraught relationship.
// The paper was poorly researched and fraught with errors.
Examples:
"We might think replicating one of these ideas will deliver that perfectly walkable, equitable, sustainable and prosperous city of our hopeful imagination. Not likely. Many of these were hard wins, often fraught and contested in their local context." — Gia Biagi, The Chicago Tribune, 5 Apr. 2026
Did you know?
An early instance of the word fraught occurs in the 14th century poem Richard Coer de Lyon, about England's King Richard I, aka Richard the Lionheart. The line "The drowmound was so hevy fraught / That unethe myght it saylen aught" describes a large fast-sailing ship so heavily fraught—that is, loaded—that it can barely sail. The poet's use of fraught is typical for the time; originally, something that was fraught was laden with freight. For centuries, fraught continued to be used in relation to loaded ships, but that use is now considered archaic. These days, fraught is used in reference to situations that are heavy with tension, emotion, or some other weighty characteristic.
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