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PlainSpell

free

UK /fɹiː/adjective, adverb, verb, noun, number

free is spelled F-R-E-E. The wrong spelling people search most is freee: about 990 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 62 of all searches for the word. Free is an adjective meaning “Unconstrained”.

How do you spell free?

Free is spelled F-R-E-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 62 of the searches for free in either form.

freethe right spelling60,430 searches a month
freeean extra e990 searches a month

Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.

What does free mean?

adjective

  1. 1

    Unconstrained.

    He was given free rein to do whatever he wanted.

  2. 2

    Not imprisoned or enslaved.

    Free Blacks

  3. 3

    Generous; liberal.

    He's very free with his money.

  4. 4

    obsoleteClear of offence or crime; guiltless; innocent.

  5. 5

    Without obligations.

    free time

  6. 6

    To be enjoyed by anyone freely.

    a free school

  7. 7

    Upholding individual rights.

    the Free World

  8. 8

    With no or only freedom-preserving limitations on distribution or modification.

    OpenOffice is free software.

adverb

  1. 1

    Without needing to pay.

    I got this bike free.

  2. 2

    obsoleteFreely; willingly.

verb

  1. 1

    To make free; set at liberty; release.

  2. 2

    To rid of something that confines or oppresses.

  3. 3

    To relinquish (previously allocated memory) to the system.

noun

  1. 1

    Abbreviation of free kick.

    Whether deserved or not, the free gave Cresswell the chance to cover himself in glory with a shot on goal after the siren.

  2. 2

    A free transfer.

  3. 3

    The usual means of restarting play after a foul is committed, where the non-offending team restarts from where the foul was committed.

  4. 4

    informalAbbreviation of freestyle.

    The team won the 200 meters free relay.

number

  1. 1

    colloquialPronunciation spelling of three

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce free?

  • UK /fɹiː/
  • UK [fɹɪi̯]
  • British /fɹɪj/

Free has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-free.ogg, En-us-free.ogg, En-us--free.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of free

  • freer comparative
  • more free comparative
  • freest superlative
  • most free superlative
  • frees present, singular, he/she/it, plural
  • freeing participle, present
  • freed participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is free?

Free appears 427 times per million words in written English, the 214th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Words people confuse with free

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

free vs three0 B

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

Free in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchlibre (not imprisoned), disponible (not in use), gratuitement, gratis, gratos (without needing to pay), libérer (to make free, set at liberty)
Germanfrei (not imprisoned), gratis, umsonst (without needing to pay), ungezwungen, freimütig, frank und frei (unconstrained)
Portugueselivre (not imprisoned), vago (not in use), grátis, de graça, gratuitamente (without needing to pay), libertar (to make free, set at liberty)
Spanishlibre (not imprisoned), gratis, gratiñán, gratarola (without needing to pay), sin obstáculos, despejado (unobstructed)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does free come from?

From Middle English fre, from Old English frēo, frēoh, frī, friġ, frīoh (“free”), from Proto-West Germanic *frī, from Proto-Germanic *frijaz (“beloved, not in bondage”), from Proto-Indo-European *priHós (“pleased, loved”), from *preyH- (“to please; to love”). Related to friend.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).