Free

Free, frē, adj. not bound: at liberty: not under arbitrary government: unimpeded: set at liberty: guiltless: frank: lavish: not attached: exempt (with from): having a franchise (with of): gratuitous: bold, indecent: idiomatic, as a translation.—v.t. to set at liberty: to deliver from what confines: to rid (with from, of):—pr.p. free′ing; pa.p. freed.—ns. Free′-ag′ency, state or power of acting freely, or without necessity or constraint upon the will; Free′-ag′ent; Free′-and-eas′y, a kind of public-house club where good fellows gather to smoke and sing; Free′-bench, a widow's right to dower out of her husband's lands, so long as unmarried and chaste; Free′-board, the space between a vessel's line of flotation and the upper side of the deck; Free′booter (Dut. vrijbuiter), one who roves about freely in search of booty: a plunderer; Free′bootery.—adj. Free′booting, acting the part of a freebooter: robbing.—n. the practice of a freebooter: robbery, pillage.—n. Free′booty.—adj. Free′born, born of free parents.—ns. Free′-cit′y, a city having independent government; Free′-cost, freedom from charges; Freed′man, a man who has been a slave, and has been freed or set free; Free′dom, liberty: frankness: separation: privileges connected with a city: improper familiarity: license; Free′-fish′er, one who has a right to take fish in certain waters.—adjs. Free-foot′ed (Shak.) not restrained in movement; Free′-hand, applied to drawing by the unguided hand; Free′-hand′ed, open-handed: liberal; Free′-heart′ed, open-hearted: liberal.—ns. Free′-heart′edness, liberality: frankness; Free′hold, a property held free of duty except to the king; Free′holder, one who possesses a freehold; Free′-lā′bour, voluntary, not slave, labour; Free′-lance, one of certain roving companies of knights and men-at-arms, who after the Crusades wandered about Europe, selling their services to any one; Free′-liv′er, one who freely indulges his appetite for eating and drinking: a glutton; Free′-love, the claim to freedom in sexual relations, unshackled by marriage or obligation to aliment.—adv. Free′ly.—ns. Free′man, a man who is free or enjoys liberty: one who holds a particular franchise or privilege:—pl. Free′men; Free′māson, one of a secret society of so-called speculative masons, united in lodges for social enjoyment and mutual assistance, and laying dubious claim to a connection with the medieval organisations of free operative masons.—adj. Freemason′ic.—n. Freemā′sonry, the institutions, practices, &c. of Freemasons.—adj. Free′-mind′ed, with a mind free or unperplexed: without a load of care.—ns. Free′ness; Free′-port, a port where no duties are levied on articles of commerce; Free′-school, a school where no tuition fees are exacted; Free′-shot (Ger. Freischütz), the name given to a legendary hunter and marksman who gets a number of bullets (Freikugeln) from the devil, six of which always hit the mark, while the seventh is at the disposal of the devil himself.—adjs. Free′-soil, in favour of free territory, opposed to slavery; Free′-spōk′en, accustomed to speak without reserve.—ns. Free′-spōk′enness; Free′stone, an easily quarried stone composed of sand or grit.—adj. having a stone from which the pulp easily separates, as a peach—opp. to Clingstone.—adj. Free′-swim′ming, swimming freely, as an aquatic animal.—ns. Free′thinker, one who professes to be free from conventional authority in religion: a rationalist; Free′thinking, Free′-thought, the habit of mind of a freethinker.—adj. Free′-tongued, free-spoken.—ns. Free′-trade, free or unrestricted trade: free interchange of commodities without protective duties; Free′-trad′er, one who practises or advocates this; Free′-will, freedom of the will from restraint: liberty of choice: power of self-determination.—adj. spontaneous.—Free-cell formation, the formation of several cells from and in the protoplasm of the mother-cell; Free Church, that branch of the Presbyterians in Scotland which left the Established Church in the Disruption of 1843, finding spiritual independence impossible within it: a church whose sittings are open to all: (pl.) a term often applied to the Nonconformist churches generally; Free list, the list of persons admitted without payment to a theatre, &c., or of those to whom a book, &c., is sent; Free on board (F.O.B.), a phrase meaning that goods are to be delivered on the vessel or other conveyance without charge.—Free States, in America, before the Civil War of 1861-65, those of the United States in which slavery did not exist, as opposed to Slave States.—Make free with, to take undue liberties with. [A.S. freo; Ger. frei, Ice. frí.]