freelance

Meanings

Noun

• Someone who sells their services to clients without a long-term employment contract.
• A medieval mercenary.

Adjective

• Of, or relating to a freelance; without employment contract.

Verb

• To work as a freelance.
• To produce or sell services as a freelance.

Origin

• From free + lance. Coined by Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) in Ivanhoe (1820) to describe a medieval mercenary warrior or "free-lance" (indicating that the lance is not sworn to any lord's services). It changed to a figurative noun around the 1860s and was recognized as a verb in 1903 by authorities such as the Oxford English Dictionary. In modern times the term has morphed into an adjective, a verb, and an adverb, as well as the derivative noun freelancer.