free spirit

English

Noun

free spirit (plural free spirits)

1. One who is a nonconformist or who does not recognize the authority of others.

   Synonyms: eccentric, heteroclite, individualist; see also Thesaurus:maverick

   • 1904, Jack London, chapter 26, in The Sea-Wolf (Macmillan’s Standard Library), New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, →OCLC:

     But Lucifer was a free spirit. To serve was to suffocate.

   • 1917, Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by Thomas Common, Thus Spake Zarathustra‎^[1]:

     —“And thou,” said Zarathustra to the wanderer and shadow, “thou callest and thinkest thyself a free spirit? And thou here practisest such idolatry and hierolatry?

   • 1959 October 19, “Books: Rake's Progress”, in Time‎^[2], archived from the original on 2012-08-01:

     Writing in the Victorian era, Scientist Ellis (Psychology of Sex) idolized Casanova as a free spirit, a man who had the courage to live life fully, and as a shining example of "adjustment"—for Casanova adapted himself so easily to his own desires.

   • 2011 July 27, Alex Williams, “What Your Beard Says About You”, in New York Times‎^[3], retrieved 29 July 2011:

     To many bosses, a beard is a dangerous sign, like a neck tattoo or a pierced nose, that says, “I am a free spirit, not a team player.”

2. (historical) A member of the organized heretic movement Brethren of the Free Spirit in opposition of the Catholic Church from the 13th to 15th centuries.
   • 1989, Greil Marcus, “The assault on Notre-Dame”, in Lipstick Traces, Faber & Faber, published 2009:

     Free spirits sought paradise with the claim that only through the affirmation of sin could one negate it. The partisan of the Free Spirit did not incarnate sin. He […] incarnated God.

Derived terms

• free-spirited

Translations

nonconformist

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 無拘無束的人, 无拘无束的人 (wújūwúshù de rén), 隨性的人, 随性的人 (suí xìng de rén)

• Dutch: vrij elektron n
• Finnish: oman tiensä kulkija
• French: électron libre (fr) m, anticonformiste (fr) m
• German: Freigeist (de) m
• Greek: ελεύθερο πνεύμα n (eléfthero pnévma)
• Polish: wolny duch m
• Romanian: spirit liber n
• Spanish: espíritu libre m

Further reading

• free spirit on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Brethren of the Free Spirit on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• petrifiers