freeman
noun/ˈfɹiː.mən/ · /ˈfɹiːˌmæn/
Etymology From Old English frēomann, equivalent to free + -man and paralleled by similar constructions in other Germanic languages. Doublet of preman.
› A free person
Historical, Usually A person who is not a serf or slave.
Historical A burgher with full freedom of a city, as opposed to nobles, outsiders, bondsmen, and others.
A person who has received an honorary freedom of a city.
Usually, As two words A person who is a citizen of a free country, as opposed to a subject of a tyranny or totalitarian dictatorship.
- There breathes no being but has some pretence / To that fine instinct called poetic sense; […] / The freeman, casting with unpurchased hand / The vote that shakes the turrets of the land.1836, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., “Poetry: A Metrical Essay”, republished in The Poems of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, 1862, OCLC 5091562, pages 7–8
Australia, Historical A person who immigrated to Australia freely, as opposed to those transported as convicts, or such a transported convict who has regained his freedom.
Canada, US, Historical An independent fur trapper.
- Derived terms
- freemanlike, freeman on the land, freeman's, freemanship, freeman's key, freeman's quay, Harry Freeman's, nonfreeman
- Hyponyms
- freedman