free and easyadj.adv.n.
/ˌfriː ən(d) ˈiːzi/, U.S. /ˌfri ən ˈizi/ A. adj.
Originally: free from physical obstruction or hindrance; unrestricted. Later more usually: unconstrained, natural, unaffected; informal, relaxed, easy-going; (also with negative connotation) careless, slipshod; morally lax, permissive.
ΘΚΠ
the world > action or operation > behaviour > unaffectedness or naturalness > [adjective] > unconstrained
free and easy1594
unconstrained1704
unstructured1941
society > authority > lack of subjection > permission > [adjective] > that permits
permissive1576
free and easy1594
concessive1619
facultative1822
permissory1849
tolerative1891
the world > action or operation > manner of action > carelessness > [adjective] > careless, not thorough
overlyc1450
superficialc1456
sloven1532
sloven-like1569
perfunctory1592
slovenly1592
perfunctorious1599
cursory1601
cursorarya1616
slighty1619
cursitory1632
touch and go1682
passant1685
skimming1728
slapdashc1792
lax1812
slap-bang1815
slummocking1825
slobbery1832
percursory1837
slipshod1845
slip-string1854
slummocky1855
free and easy1864
unthorough1868
slurring1880
slummy1881
sploshy1881
skimmy1893
surfacy1975
drive-through1994
1594 T. Bowes tr. P. de la Primaudaye French Acad. II. 150 That there might bee a more free and easie space for the motion of the Animal spirite.
1644 K. Digby Two Treat. i. xvi. 140 Those souldiers that first enter a breach..make a free and easy way without resistance for the whole body of their army to follow them.
1672 R. Harrison Two Serm. i. 3 Such should be the stream of Justice,..that every one may have a free and easie access unto it.
1695 P. Hume Ann. Paradise Lost i. 4 That free and easie way of writing and speaking, unshackled and unconfined in its Parts and Periods, used by Orators, Historians, and all Men in common Conversation, styled Soluta Oratio.
1711 J. Addison Spectator No. 119. ¶3 The Fashionable World is grown free and easie.
1756 R. Baron in J. Milton Eikonoklastes Pref. p. v In the book before us his style is for the most part free and easy.
1832 F. A. Butler Jrnl. 22 Sept. (1835) I. 127 The free and easy landlady ordered candles, and added, ‘Come, sit down and give us a tune then.’
1861 T. Hughes Tom Brown at Oxf. I. viii. 145 I don't think he has ever got back since that day to his original free-and-easy swagger.
1864 J. H. Newman Apologia 134 I had a lounging free-and-easy way of carrying things on.
1908 ‘G. A. Birmingham’ Spanish Gold 13 He had formed a friendship with the Rev. Joseph John Meldon in spite of the curate's free-and-easy manners, habitual unpunctuality, and incurable untidiness.
1936 E. C. Bridgman & G. B. Bridgman in Graphic Arts ii. 13 The joint..is a saddle joint, with the free and easy movement of one in a saddle.
1975 New Society 10 July 71/1 The West Indians..are more free and easy, and tend to have noisy all night parties and shebeens.
1981 Washington Post 10 Aug. c4 Among the assorted pleasures of the Glen Echo Park summer dance festival is the free and easy atmosphere.
2001 N.Y. Mag. 22 Jan. 76/1 The questionable ethics of everyone else onstage fit very naturally into the free-and-easy morality of the Roaring Twenties.
B. adv.
In a free and easy manner; esp. without physical obstruction or hindrance, smoothly.
ΘΚΠ
the world > movement > progressive motion > specific manner of progressive motion > [adverb] > smoothly
smoothlyc1400
smootha1500
free and easy1730
swimmingly1745
glidingly1797
soapily1833
silkenly1846
silkily1923
1730 J. Cook Anat. & Mech. Ess. II. 360 It likewise serves greatly..to lubricate the Bones at their Extremities, that they may move free and easy.
?1757 Mod. Patriot 27 Take Care to have it run free and easy at the Fountain Head.
1840 Republican Compiler (Gettysburg, Pa.) 26 May (advt.) It..loosens the Cough, causing the phlegm to rise free and easy.
1856 Sci. Amer. 5 Apr. 235/4 A four wheeled truck..resting on strong elliptic springs, so as to run free and easy.
1920 Republican Press (Salamanca, N.Y.) 8 Mar. 6/3 (advt.) Instead of groaning and hanging back, needle and shuttle..fly like the wind. The thread runs free and easy.
1963 P. W. Lyon Success Story i. 26 Good times: sleeping in sweet-scented hayricks,..broiling steaks on green sticks at campfires in hickory groves, traveling free and easy.
1992 H. Mitchell One Man's Garden x. 205 The gate is a quarter-inch crooked... But at least it swings free and easy.
C. n.
1. Originally: an informal gathering for singing or similar entertainment, at which drinking and smoking are also permitted; a smoking concert. In later use frequently: spec. an evening of informal entertainment held in a public house, music hall, etc. Cf. free-and-easy club n. at Compounds. Now chiefly historical.In quot. 1761 used in the name of a regular gathering of this type.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > social event > social gathering > [noun] > informal
free and easy1761
sans souci1781
kitchen party1878
get-together1898
lime1956
1761 St. James Chron. 23 Apr. in Yearly Chron. (1762) 58 The Free and Easy under the Rose. A new Song, sung at the Anniversary Meeting. [Note] This Society is so truly amicable, that [etc.].
1821 Sat. Evening Post (Philadelphia) 6 Oct. 3/4 A Free and Easy will commence for the season, at the Burn's Inn, Bank street, this evening. Amateurs and lovers of song are respectfully invited to attend.
1828 W. Hone Table Bk. II. 57 Not a concert was held, not a ‘free and easy’ passed, without songs and melodies to ‘soldiers’.
1878 W. Besant & J. Rice By Celia's Arbour II. xvii. 278 The Blue Anchor..where there was a nightly free-and-easy for soldiers and sailors.
1925 M. D. George London Life XVIII Cent. 275 Lawyers and well-to-do tradesmen no longer habitually met in free-and-easies in tavern parlours.
1947 Times 28 Nov. 7/5 He acquired a local reputation as a singer in public-house ‘free-and-easies’ at Bradford and Leeds.
1997 Popular Music 16 135 Accounts of pub free-and-easies in the 1860s and 1870s indicate that songs such as ‘The Shamrock of Ireland’ were sung along with familiar English ballads.
1999 Birmingham Evening Mail (Nexis) 25 Aug. 4 The club has..organised forthcoming family skittle night and free and easys.
2. A public house or other (often disreputable) establishment offering such entertainment. Also (chiefly U.S. slang): a brothel. Now historical.
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > drink > drinking > drinking place > [noun] > tavern or public house > other types of tavern
soaking club1694
molly-house1728
night house1728
tide-house1764
rathskeller1768
morning-house1781
free public house1793
lust-house1818
gin palace1833
free and easy1842
schooner-house1893
gay bar1947
tasca1957
singles bar1969
pub theatre1971
theme pub1983
brewpub1985
gastropub1996
1842 Sporting Rev. Oct. 244 I happened to be in the act of ascending the stairs of one of the free-and-easies in the vicinity of Covent-garden, dedicated to midnight melody and mutton chops.
1851 L. F. C. Extracts from Diary Living Physician 99 I repaired to the ‘Free and Easy’—for such was, in reality, the character of the habitation in which I had left the inebriate one.
1867 J. R. Houlding Austral. Capers xiv. 128 There are lots of those ‘free and easies’ and fiddling saloons in Melbourne, and, considering the mischief they do, it's a wonder the law allows them to keep open.
1883 A. E. Sweet & J. A. Knox On Mexican Mustang xix. 256 Here is..a dance-house, a restaurant, a free-and-easy, a saloon, [etc.].
1943 J. Mitchell McSorley's Wonderful Saloon i. 126 On some of the side streets there were brothels in nearly every house; Dutch refers to them as ‘free-and-easies’.
1991 L. Sante Low Life ii. v. 181 Before the Civil War, brothels—called bagnios, or disorderly houses, or free-and-easys—were largely restricted to the waterfront and the slums.
Compounds
free-and-easy club n. now historical an informal singing club; (also) any club for socializing, drinking, etc. (frequently with the implication of dissoluteness).
ΚΠ
?1769 Dunniad 69 (heading) Song... Dedicated to the Members of the Free and Easy Club established at Pontefract.
1796 Moral & Polit. Mag. London Corresponding Soc. Nov. 264 Many people who attend public dinners, free and easy clubs, and other societies, wherein singing is introduced as a relaxation from serious business.
1818 Times 10 Apr. 3/4 On the Saturday night of the murder, he was at a free and easy club.
1894 J. D. Hunting tr. F. Rocquain Revolutionary Spirit preceding French Revol. x. 139 Divested of all decorum and reserve, the Court of Louis XVI...greatly resembled a ‘free and easy’ club, or a gambling ‘hell’.
1973 Jrnl. Hist. Ideas 34 140 After 1807, his [sc. Thomas Spence's] followers met weekly to discuss and propagate his ideas in a ‘Free and Easy Club’.
Derivatives
ˌfree-and-ˈeasiness n.
ΘΚΠ
the world > action or operation > behaviour > unaffectedness or naturalness > [noun] > naturalness or lack of constraint
unconstrainedness1656
shamelessness1667
unconstraint1713
self-abandonment1811
abandon1815
abandonment1834
self-abandon1837
free-and-easiness1842
1842 C. Dickens Let. 22 Mar. (1974) III. 154 Imagine..how now and then a republican boy, of surpassing and indescribable free and easiness comes in..and..inspects me at his leisure.
1852 Chambers's Repository Jan. 24 Everybody is in working-dress, and, as might be expected, a general atmosphere of decided free-and-easiness reigns over the assembly.
1920 Janesville (Wisconsin) Daily Gaz. 26 July 7/2 How I do love all this free and easyness. How I wish I had been brought up in an atmosphere like this.
1977 Hist. Jrnl. 20 53 This growing free-and-easiness began to extend even to two priests in the service of the Holy Office.
2005 Austral. Mag. (Nexis) 12 Feb. 34 We have the free-and-easiness of the Internet-hip under-25s.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2008; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.adv.n.1594