freighter
Americannoun
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a vessel used mainly for carrying cargo.
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a large aircraft or spacecraft used primarily for transporting cargo and equipment.
The space station of the future will be supplied by robot freighters.
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a person whose occupation it is to receive and forward freight.
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a person for whom freight is transported; shipper.
noun
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a ship or aircraft designed for transporting cargo
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a person concerned with the loading or chartering of a ship
Etymology
Origin of freighter
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In one operation about 35 nautical miles from the small island of Gavdos, off Crete, a coastguard vessel, a Danish freighter and a helicopter took 365 people off a fishing boat, according to the agency.
From Barron's • Dec. 26, 2025
The freighter was quickly unloaded and flew back to China carrying only empty pallets.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 18, 2025
It halted work at Boeing's major factories in the Seattle region, paralysing production of the 737, the 777 and the 767 freighter.
From BBC • Jan. 14, 2025
A seagoing freighter as long as two football fields slammed into a support pier and the bridge connecting Lower Tampa Bay to St. Petersburg.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 26, 2024
It would have been as sorrowful a sound in that heavy fog as anyone could readily conjure or imagine, and as it grew louder—as the freighter drew closer—it would have sounded all the more forlorn.
From "Snow Falling on Cedars: A Novel" by David Guterson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
