Free /(frē)/
Free
a.
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Exempt from subjection to the will of others; not under restraint, control, or compulsion; able to follow one's own impulses, desires, or inclinations; determining one's own course of action; not dependent; at liberty.
That which has the power, or not the power, to operate, is that alone which is or is not free.
- Not under an arbitrary or despotic government; subject only to fixed laws regularly and fairly administered, and defended by them from encroachments upon natural or acquired rights; enjoying political liberty.
- Liberated, by arriving at a certain age, from the control of parents, guardian, or master.
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Not confined or imprisoned; released from arrest; liberated; at liberty to go.
Set an unhappy prisoner free.
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Not subjected to the laws of physical necessity; capable of voluntary activity; endowed with moral liberty; -- said of the will.
Not free, what proof could they have given sincere Of true allegiance, constant faith, or love.
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Clear of offense or crime; guiltless; innocent.
My hands are guilty, but my heart is free.
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Unconstrained by timidity or distrust; unreserved; ingenuous; frank; familiar; communicative.
He was free only with a few.
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Unrestrained; immoderate; lavish; licentious; -- used in a bad sense.
The critics have been very free in their censures.
A man may live a free life as to wine or women.
- Not close or parsimonious; liberal; open-handed; lavish; as, free with his money.
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Exempt; clear; released; liberated; not encumbered or troubled with; as, free from pain; free from a burden; -- followed by from, or, rarely, by of.
Princes declaring themselves free from the obligations of their treaties.
- Characteristic of one acting without restraint; charming; easy.
- Ready; eager; acting without spurring or whipping; spirited; as, a free horse.
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Invested with a particular freedom or franchise; enjoying certain immunities or privileges; admitted to special rights; -- followed by of.
He therefore makes all birds, of every sect, Free of his farm.
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Thrown open, or made accessible, to all; to be enjoyed without limitations; unrestricted; not obstructed, engrossed, or appropriated; open; -- said of a thing to be possessed or enjoyed; as, a free school.
Why, sir, I pray, are not the streets as free For me as for you?
- Not gained by importunity or purchase; gratuitous; spontaneous; as, free admission; a free gift.
- Not arbitrary or despotic; assuring liberty; defending individual rights against encroachment by any person or class; instituted by a free people; -- said of a government, institutions, etc.
- Certain or honorable; the opposite of base; as, free service; free socage. (O. Eng. Law)
- Privileged or individual; the opposite of common; as, a free fishery; a free warren. (Law)
- Not united or combined with anything else; separated; dissevered; unattached; at liberty to escape; as, free carbonic acid gas; free cells.
Phrases & Compounds
- Free agency
- the capacity or power of choosing or acting freely, or without necessity or constraint upon the will.
- Free bench
- a widow's right in the copyhold lands of her husband, corresponding to dower in freeholds.
- Free board
- a vessel's side between water line and gunwale.
- Free bond
- an unsaturated or unemployed unit, or bond, of affinity or valence, of an atom or radical.
- Free-borough men
- See Friborg.
- Free chapel
- a chapel not subject to the jurisdiction of the ordinary, having been founded by the king or by a subject specially authorized.
- Free charge
- a charge of electricity in the free or statical condition; free electricity.
- Free church
- A church whose sittings are for all and without charge.
- Free city
- a city or town independent in its government and franchises, as formerly those of the Hanseatic league.
- Free cost
- freedom from charges or expenses.
- Free and easy
- unconventional; unrestrained; regardless of formalities.
- Free goods
- goods admitted into a country free of duty.
- Free labor
- the labor of freemen, as distinguished from that of slaves.
- Free port
- A port where goods may be received and shipped free of custom duty.
- Free public house
- in England, a tavern not belonging to a brewer, so that the landlord is free to brew his own beer or purchase where he chooses.
- Free school
- A school to which pupils are admitted without discrimination and on an equal footing.
- Free services
- such feudal services as were not unbecoming the character of a soldier or a freemen to perform; as, to serve under his lord in war, to pay a sum of money, etc.
- Free ships
- ships of neutral nations, which in time of war are free from capture even though carrying enemy's goods.
- Free socage
- a feudal tenure held by certain services which, though honorable, were not military.
- Free States
- those of the United States before the Civil War, in which slavery had ceased to exist, or had never existed.
- Free stuff
- timber free from knots; clear stuff.
- Free thought
- that which is thought independently of the authority of others.
- Free trade
- commerce unrestricted by duties or tariff regulations.
- Free trader
- one who believes in free trade.
- To make free with
- to take liberties with; to help one's self to.
- To sail free
- to sail with the yards not braced in as sharp as when sailing closehauled, or close to the wind.
Free
adv.
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Freely; willingly. [Obs.]
I as free forgive you As I would be forgiven.
- Without charge; as, children admitted free.
Free
v. t.
imp. & p. p. Freed; p. pr. & vb. n. Freeing
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To make free; to set at liberty; to rid of that which confines, limits, embarrasses, oppresses, etc.; to release; to disengage; to clear; -- followed by from, and sometimes by off; as, to free a captive or a slave; to be freed of these inconveniences.
Our land is from the rage of tigers freed.
Arise, . . . free thy people from their yoke.
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To remove, as something that confines or bars; to relieve from the constraint of.
This master key Frees every lock, and leads us to his person.
- To frank. [Obs.]