12. Ready; eager; acting without spurring or whipping; spirited; as, a
free horse.
13. 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.
Dryden.
14. 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?
Shak.
15. Not gained by importunity or purchase; gratuitous; spontaneous; as,
free admission; a free gift.
16. 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.
17. (O. Eng. Law) Certain or honorable; the opposite of base; as, free
service; free socage. Burrill.
18. (Law) Privileged or individual; the opposite of common; as, a free
fishery; a free warren. Burrill.
19. Not united or combined with anything else; separated; dissevered;
unattached; at liberty to escape; as, free carbonic acid gas; free
cells.
Free agency, the capacity or power of choosing or acting freely, or
without necessity or constraint upon the will. -- Free bench (Eng.
Law), a widow's right in the copyhold lands of her husband,
corresponding to dower in freeholds. -- Free board (Naut.), a vessel's
side between water line and gunwale. -- Free bond (Chem.), an
unsaturated or unemployed unit, or bond, of affinity or valence, of an
atom or radical. -- Free-borough men (O.Eng. Law). See Friborg. -- Free
chapel (Eccles.), a chapel not subject to the jurisdiction of the
ordinary, having been founded by the king or by a subject specially
authorized. [Eng.] Bouvier. -- Free charge (Elec.), a charge of
electricity in the free or statical condition; free electricity. --
Free church. (a) A church whose sittings are for all and without
charge. (b) An ecclesiastical body that left the Church of Scotland, in
1843, to be free from control by the government in spiritual matters.
-- Free city, or Free town, a city or town independent in its
government and franchises, as formerly those of the Hanseatic league.
-- Free cost, freedom from charges or expenses. South. -- Free and
easy, unconventional; unrestrained; regardless of formalities.
[Colloq.] "Sal and her free and easy ways." W. Black. -- Free goods,
goods admitted into a country free of duty. -- Free labor, the labor of
freemen, as distinguished from that of slaves. -- Free port. (Com.) (a)
A port where goods may be received and shipped free of custom duty. (b)
A port where goods of all kinds are received from ships of all nations
at equal rates of 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. Simmonds. -- Free school. (a) A
school to which pupils are admitted without discrimination and on an
equal footing. (b) A school supported by general taxation, by
endowmants, etc., where pupils pay nothing for tuition; a public
school. -- Free services (O.Eng. Law), 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. Burrill. --
Free ships, ships of neutral nations, which in time of war are free
from capture even though carrying enemy's goods. -- Free socage (O.Eng.
Law), a feudal tenure held by certain services which, though honorable,
were not military. Abbott. -- Free States, those of the United States
before the Civil War, in which slavery had ceased to exist, or had
never existed. -- Free stuff (Carp.), 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.
[Colloq.] -- To sail free (Naut.), to sail with the yards not braced in
as sharp as when sailing closehauled, or close to the wind.