In its modern senses, the adjective fraught has negative connotations. The phrase fraught with means full of, and it’s usually followed by a negative noun like danger, anxiety, or uncertainty. Without with, fraught means (1) distressed or (2) producing anxiety.
The word was originally a noun similar in meaning to freight—and it did not have negative connotations then—but the noun sense is obsolete.
Examples
Although fraught with is usually defined as simply full of, it’s an odd word choice when followed by something positive. For example, these writers seem unaware of fraught‘s negative connotations:
I’ve always found individual player won-loss records fascinating, although not exactly fraught with meaning. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]
More often, it is in a humbler scene, fraught with quiet and light … [Huffington Post]
Fraught with is much more commonly used in describing something negative—for example:
Williams’s career has been fraught with setbacks since her 2010 Wimbledon triumph … [Washington Post]
The U.S. relationship with Pakistan is fraught with anxiety and danger … [NPR]
Predicting where interest rates will be in a year’s time is fraught with difficulty. [Independent]
The second sense of fraught (without with) is most common in British English, but it’s used throughout the English-speaking world. Here are a few examples:
Relations between the two countries have been fraught ever since they were forced into an awkward alliance in the aftermath of 9/11. [Telegraph]
He said the experience was particularly fraught as his wife, Jenn, was expecting another child that month. [New Zealand Herald]
The murders have laid bare the area’s fraught history of racism and mistrust. [New York Times]
Given this sense of fraught, phrases like fraught with anxiety and fraught with worry are redundant. With anxiety or with worry could be dropped with no loss of meaning.
