v1.0
Published 01/10/24
frachd m.
Dwelly (1911) has feminine, although his source for the word (MacBain 1896; 1911) does not give the gender.
[fɾaxk], gen. idem, ‘freight’
Armstrong 1825: ‘a freight’; AFB˄: ‘fraught (fare); freight; kain, dues/tithe/rent paid in kind’. Among the final generation of Gaelic speakers in Easter Ross the senses of frachd were restricted to ‘the shoulder frame for carrying two buckets of water’ and ‘the amount of water thus carried’ (pers. comm. Professor Seòsamh Watson).
is derived by Mackay (1897, 93: fracht [sic]) from Dan. fragt ‘idem’, but by MacBain (1896; 1911) and MacLennan (1925) from Scots fraught, i.e. fraucht, fracht etc. ‘the act of carrying or a single instance of it; the hire of a boat; the price paid for it, a fare, passage- or freight-money; a load’ (SND˄: [m.Sc. frǫxt, I., n., sm.Se frɑxt], < MEng. fra(u)ght, MDut., MLGerm. vracht ‘carriage by sea, transport’). McDonald (2009, 355) remarks that the alternation of -cht ~ -chd in Gaelic is ‘unclear’, but the former is Mackay’s own spelling, perhaps influenced by his Danish etymology (fragt), while -chd represents -[xk], the Scottish Gaelic reflex of EG -cht -[xt̪], cf. SG seachd ‘seven’, EG secht (Ir. seacht). Scots fracht yields SG frachd regularly; cf. Ir. (Donegal) fracht ‘load, batch’ (Uí Bheirn 1989), probably from the same source.