at large

Cultural  

1. A descriptive term for the election of public officials by an entire governmental unit rather than by subdivisions of the unit. For example, a delegate at large does not represent any specific district or locale, but speaks instead for a much wider group of people.

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at large Idioms  

1. Free, unconfined, especially not confined in prison, as in To our distress, the housebreakers were still at large . [1300s]

2. At length, fully; also, as a whole, in general. For example, The chairman talked at large about the company's plans for the coming year , or, as Shakespeare wrote in Love's Labour's Lost (1:1): “So to the laws at large I write my name” (that is, I uphold the laws in general). This usage is somewhat less common. [1400s]

3. Elected to represent an entire group of voters rather than those in a particular district or other segment—for example, alderman at large , representing all the wards of a city instead of just one, or delegate at large to a labor union convention . [Mid-1700s]

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Example Sentences

Private credit markets are on that watchlist, he said, though he sees no signs yet of the kind of contagion that would threaten the system at large.

From Barron's • Mar. 30, 2026

The public at large bought into those efforts with little skepticism in the understandable desire to have Latinos star in the American story.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 24, 2026

The cuts come against a backdrop of wider layoffs across the gaming sector, impacting developers at large and small studios alike.

From BBC • Mar. 24, 2026

His experiments with mescaline convinced him that consciousness came from an entity outside the brain that he called mind at large.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 15, 2026

And as for the uncanny business of the name, in the world at large it hadn’t caused much stir.

From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor

Related Words

• able
• clear
• easy
• independent
• loose
• open
• unfettered
• unrestricted