Other forms: independents
Independent means standing on your own, not needing anybody's control or help. An independent country, financially independent, an independent report.
In politics it means self-governing, and an independent is a candidate belonging to no party. Of a report or a review it means carried out by somebody with no stake in the answer, which is the whole basis of its value. Of a person it means self-reliant, sometimes admiringly and sometimes as a warning. Note independent school, the British term for a fee-paying school, and independence, the noun.
1adjectiveindependentNot needing anybody's control or help.
“She has been financially independent since she was nineteen.”
2adjectiveconnectedNot connected to or controlled by an interested party.
“An independent review found the same three faults.”
3nouncandidateA candidate belonging to no political party.
“An independent won the seat by about two hundred votes.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
independent is a state of self-reliance.
The word is in-, not, plus dependent, from Latin dependere, to hang from. To be dependent is to hang off somebody; to be independent is to hang off nobody, which is a more physical image than the abstract word suggests.
Middle English
independent
English, today
independent
From Middle English independent, equivalent to in- + dependent. Compare French indépendant.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA