Meaning

originDialectal past participle of fright (“frighten”), formed on the model of bite:bit and light:lit. Compare the parallel formation fit (“fought”). By the late 20th century, largely confined to the Lincolnshire dialect, but adopted into political slang in the 1980s from the speeches of Grantham-born Margaret Thatcher.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0