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freelancing

nounB2+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,476 of 15,258neutral

Freelancing is working for many clients rather than one employer. Try freelancing, freelancing rates, go freelancing.

The trade-off is freedom against security: no sick pay, no holiday pay and no notice, which is why rates should be well above an employee's hourly equivalent. Late payment is the standing complaint. The word comes from free lance, a medieval mercenary.

Definitions of freelancing

  1. 1nounfreelancingWorking for many clients rather than one employer.B2+

    “After years in an office, she took up freelancing so she could work from home.”

freelancing is a way of working.

Where it comes from

freelance comes from free + lance. coined by Walter Scott (1771–1832) in Ivanhoe (1819; freelance) to describe a medieval mercenary warrior or "free-lance" (indicating that the lance is not sworn to any lord's services). It changed to a figurative noun around the 1860s and was recognized as a verb in 1903 by authorities such as the Oxford English Dictionary. In modern times the term has morphed into an adjective, a verb, and an adverb, as well as the derivative noun freelancer.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Work & Careers

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freelancing in the wild

  • The musical director of the film was Leigh Harline and that and the other romantic dance sequences were orchestrated by Conrad Salinger while he was freelancing.

    I'm Old Fashioned

  • Gilbert also spent time freelancing as a sound editor.

    John Gilbert (film editor)

  • Gully drew illustrations for Marvel Comics from 2007 to 2009 before returning to freelancing.

    Mario Gully

  • For many years, she was Publishing Manager for Dictionaries and Literature at Oxford University Press, but left in 2018 and is now freelancing.

    Megan Hall (poet)

  • E-lancing, also known as e-labour, is the practice of taking freelancing work through online job offers.

    E-lancing

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.