make free of
verb1
To use something that belongs to another person (often with permission)
- The chickens and dogs were making free of the galleries, and the hogs wallowed in peaceful immunity underneath.1892, Grace E. King, “Bayou L'Ombre”, in S. T. Joshi, editor, Civil War Memories: Lost Tales of the Civil War, Thomas Nelson, published 2000:
- 1967, Berechiah ben Natronai ha-Nakdan, Fables of a Jewish Aesop, translated by Moses Hadas, Jaffrey, NH: David R. Godine, 2001, p. 110 https://books.google.ca/books?id=s6EjsopJmp4C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false There she saw many mice making free of wheat and barley; six measures of barley they meted out to themselves to bring to their holes, until they had enough and to spare.
2 more examples
- […] a young woman curtsied to him. "Please make free of my home," said she.1979, Tanith Lee, Death's Master, New York: Daw Books, p. 23, Book 1, Part 1:
- He did not know everyone knew he had a gun; that the children who made free of every hut as the cockroaches knew everything and chattered all.1981, Nadine Gordimer, July's People, Penguin:
- Related terms
- make free with