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Free lance   /fri læns/   Listen
noun
Lance  n.  
1.
A weapon of war, consisting of a long shaft or handle and a steel blade or head; a spear carried by horsemen, and often decorated with a small flag; also, a spear or harpoon used by whalers and fishermen. "A braver soldier never couched lance."
2.
A soldier armed with a lance; a lancer.
3.
(Founding) A small iron rod which suspends the core of the mold in casting a shell.
4.
(Mil.) An instrument which conveys the charge of a piece of ordnance and forces it home.
5.
(Pyrotech.) One of the small paper cases filled with combustible composition, which mark the outlines of a figure.
6.
(Med.) A lancet.
Free lance, in the Middle Ages, and subsequently, a knight or roving soldier, who was free to engage for any state or commander that purchased his services; hence, a person who assails institutions or opinions on his own responsibility without regard to party lines or deference to authority. See also freelance, n. and a., and freelancer.
Lance bucket (Cavalry), a socket attached to a saddle or stirrup strap, in which to rest the but of a lance.
Lance corporal, same as Lancepesade.
Lance knight, a lansquenet.
Lance snake (Zool.), the fer-de-lance.
Stink-fire lance (Mil.), a kind of fuse filled with a composition which burns with a suffocating odor; used in the counter operations of miners.
To break a lance, to engage in a tilt or contest.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Free lance" Quotes from Famous Books



... first. "Better proposition than before," Martinson said. Well, perhaps it would be best to look into it; Luck was too experienced to believe that one success means permanent success; there are too many risks for the free lance to run when a single failure means financial annihilation. If the Acme would come to his terms, it might be to his advantage to take his boys back and accept this peace-offering. At any rate, he appreciated to the full ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... in the universities. He saw, or thought he saw, English religion milked for the benefit of Oxford and Cambridge graduates needful of "livings"; and Darwinism and the new sciences generally being swept into the maw of the same professionally intellectual class. A free lance himself, with a table in the British Museum, some books and a deficit instead of an income from his intellectual labors, he attacked the vested interests ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... the novelist, may have used persuasion at this juncture with her father and mother. At any rate, as the issue of a great deal of lively discussion, the parents agreed to let Honore make a two years' experiment as a free lance in the ranks of the book-writing tribe. By the end of that time, they no doubt imagined he would be glad enough to re-enact the parable of the prodigal son and ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton


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