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free state. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
free state, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
free state in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
free state you have here. The definition of the word
free state will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition of
free state, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
English
Etymology
From free + state, probably a calque of German Freistaat.
Noun
free state (plural free states)
- A political entity whose political status is less than that of a fully sovereign nation-state, as with the former Congo Free State and the former Irish Free State.
- A Federal state, with allegiance to a larger entity, as currently with Germany, and earlier, the relationship between the states of the Holy Roman Empire and the Emperor, and later, the states of the German Empire under the Hohenzollerns.
- An independent or autonomous political entity whose formal status and relationship to other states is undefined.
- A republic or commonwealth, as with the former Orange Free State, and especially as used for the current United Kingdom to refer to the Commonwealth period under Cromwell.
- (engineering) A condition of not being supported or constrained by outside forces.
The steel ring is required by the engineering drawing to have roundness within .25mm TIR while in the free state. Its diameters may be measured in the constrained state while the part is still chucked or fixtured.
- (US, historical) Before the American Civil War, any of the states in which the owning of slaves was not legal.
- (grammar) A noun form in Afroasiatic languages contrasting with the construct state by the noun not being dependent (more commonly called absolute state, or indeterminate state if the specific language contrasts a determinate state with the construct state).
Derived terms
Translations
political entity whose political status is less than that of a fully sovereign nation-state