# free

Pronunciation: say "FREE" /fɹiː/

## Adjective

1. Given or available without payment, including as a gift with a purchase or promotion.
   - Simple: Costing nothing, so you do not have to pay for it.
   - _The clinic offers free vaccinations to all residents._
   - _The app is free, but the best features cost money._
2. Not constrained or restricted; able to act, move, or choose as one wishes.
   - Simple: Not limited or controlled, so able to act, move, or choose as wanted.
   - _Once the deal was signed, she was free to speak about it._
   - _He gave the young director free rein over the casting._
4. Not containing or affected by something specified; exempt from or clear of it; used with 'of' or 'from'.
   - Simple: Not having, containing or affected by a particular thing.
   - _The report was free of errors._
   - _A life free from worry is what most people want._
6. Not imprisoned, enslaved, or otherwise held in bondage; at liberty.
   - Simple: Not kept in prison and not owned as a slave.
   - _The prisoners walked out into the sunlight, free at last._
   - _In the free states, escaped slaves could still be hunted._
7. Not busy, booked, occupied, or in use, and so available.
   - Simple: Available, because a person is not busy or a thing is not being used.
   - _The doctor is not free until next Tuesday._
   - _He spends his free time fixing old radios._
8. Not attached to or combined with anything else; existing separately, as of a chemical element, a rope's end, or mushroom gills not joined to the stem.
   - Simple: Not joined or fixed to anything else.
   - _The rope's free end whipped in the wind._
   - _Iron is seldom found free in the earth's crust._
9. Following an original text only loosely, or not bound by a strict, conventional form.
   - Simple: Not following the original words closely, or not following strict rules of form.
   - _Her free translation captures the spirit of the poem rather than its exact words._
   - _The director's free adaptation moves the story from Paris to present-day Chicago._
11. Generous or liberal in giving or spending.
   - Simple: Happy to give or spend a lot.
   - _The old man was free with advice and stingy with everything else._
   - _She has always been free with her time, helping anyone who asks._
10. Of software, distributed with no restrictions on copying, studying, modifying, and redistributing it, except ones that preserve those liberties.
   - Simple: Describes software that anyone may use, copy, study, change and share, whether or not it costs money.
   - _The license makes the code free in the sense of freedom, not price._
   - _The city council voted to use only free software, so anyone could inspect, change and share the code it ran on._
12. Open to all; able to be used or enjoyed by anyone without restriction.
   - Simple: Open to everyone to use, without anyone being kept out.
   - _The path along the river is free to everyone, not only to the families who live beside it._
   - _The village well was free to every household._
13. Of a government or country, upholding individual rights and liberties; not authoritarian.
   - Simple: Allowing people to speak, vote, and live as they choose, used of a country or government.
   - _Elections alone do not make a nation free._
   - _Journalists in free societies still face pressure from advertisers._
14. Unobstructed and clear of blockages, so that movement or flow through it is not hindered.
   - Simple: Not blocked, so that things can move or flow through.
   - _The pipe ran free again once the ice had melted._
   - _Firefighters need a free path to the hydrant._

## Adverb

3. Without payment being required; at no cost to the person receiving the thing.
   - Simple: Without paying any money, or without any charge being made.
   - _The timetables were handed out free at every station._
   - _Members can download the whole archive free._

## Verb

5. To release someone or something from captivity, control, or anything that confines, traps or burdens them; often with from or of.
   - Simple: To get someone or something out of what holds, traps or controls them, or weighs them down.
   - _The new government freed all political prisoners._
   - _She managed to free her hand from the tangled rope._

## Noun

15. Short for free kick in Australian rules and Gaelic football, and for a free puck in hurling and camogie: an unopposed kick or strike awarded to a player, usually after a foul. — Abbreviation of free kick.
   - Simple: In Australian rules, Gaelic football and hurling, a free kick or hit a player is given, usually after a foul.
   - _A late free gave the visitors the chance to level the scores._
   - _The crowd howled at every free awarded to the home side._
16. Abbreviation of freestyle, in swimming; informal. *(colloquial)* — Abbreviation of freestyle.
   - Simple: In swimming, short for freestyle: a race where any stroke is allowed, or the front crawl most swimmers use in it.
   - _The team's best event is the 400 free relay._
   - _Coaches usually teach free before butterfly._
17. In soccer, a free transfer: a player's move to another club without a transfer fee, usually at the end of a contract.
   - Simple: In soccer, a move to a new club with no fee paid.
   - _He left the club on a free and signed a two-year deal elsewhere._
   - _Signing veterans on frees is how small clubs survive._

## Adjective

18. Of a horse or similar animal, ready and eager, moving willingly without spur or whip; spirited. *(dated)*
   - Simple: Describes a horse that is lively and eager to move, with no need for a whip.
   - _He liked a free horse under him, one that answered the lightest touch._
   - _The old coachman said a free horse would ruin itself if you let it._
19. Admitted to the rights or privileges of a place or body; followed by 'of'. *(dated)*
   - Simple: Given special rights or privileges, such as the right to use a place or trade, an old use.
   - _A craftsman who had served his time was made free of the guild._
   - _As an honored guest, he was made free of the duke's library and could read there whenever he liked._

## Other meanings

- (verb) In programming, to return previously allocated memory to the system so that it can be reused.
- (adjective) In law, held as a special or exclusive right; privileged or proprietary, as in 'a free fishery' or 'a free warren'.
- (adjective) Describing an algebraic structure that is generic or universal in any of several technical senses.
- (adjective) Of a rocket or missile, not controlled by a guidance system once launched; unguided.
- (adjective) In linguistics, of a morpheme, able to stand alone as a word rather than needing to attach to another morpheme.
- (adjective) In logic and programming, of a variable, not bound by a quantifier or by the expression or function in which it appears.
- (adjective) Of a software build, intended for release and omitting debugging diagnostics, as opposed to a checked build.
- (adjective) Not guilty of any wrongdoing or crime.
- (adjective) In category theory, of an object built on a set, where each function from that set into another object extends uniquely to a morphism matching it through the canonical map.
- (adjective) Of a group, generated by elements bound by no relations except those every group must satisfy.
- (adjective) Of a module, possessing a basis, a generating set whose elements are linearly independent.
- (adjective) In old English law, of land tenure or services, fixed or honorable, as befits a freeman rather than a serf.
- (adverb) Of one's own accord, without being forced.

## Origin

**Meanings 1–4, 6–14, 18–19** — From Middle English free, from Old English frēo ("free"), from Proto-Germanic *frijaz ("beloved, not in bondage"), and ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European root *preyH- ("to please, love"). It is related to friend; in Germanic and Celtic the word for "dear, beloved" also came to mean "free" (not in bondage), an extension of the idea of being characteristic of one's own dear friends and tribe, as opposed to slaves and prisoners.
**Meaning 5** — Proto-Indo-European *preyH- gave Proto-Germanic *frijōną, the source of Old English frēon or frēoġan ("to free, make free") and then Middle English freen. German freien and Dutch vrijen are cognates.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/free (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).