free soil
noun
a region, especially a U.S. territory, prohibiting slavery prior to the Civil War.
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free soil
1 Americannoun
U.S. History.
free-soil
2
American
[free-soil]
/ ˈfriˈsɔɪl /
adjective
U.S. History.
-
pertaining to or opposing the extension of slavery in the Territories.
-
pertaining to or characteristic of the Free Soil party.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of free soil1
An Americanism dating back to 1840–50
Origin of free-soil2
An Americanism dating back to 1840–50
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
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Residents who live in the KCD service area, which includes most of the cities and unincorporated areas in King County, are eligible for up to five free soil tests.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 11, 2023
She escaped to free soil in Pennsylvania more than a century and a half ago, only returning to the Eastern Shore for the rescues of enslaved people.
From New York Times ● Jun. 21, 2022
Send items you don’t want to include, like bones or moldy cheese, to professional waste treaters and use the rest of your household food waste to create excellent and free soil amendments for your garden.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 28, 2022
So what happened was, Dred Scott was an enslaved man whose owners had taken him to free soil, in Wisconsin and Illinois.
From Salon ● Jul. 12, 2021
Arriving on New York’s free soil, he later wrote, “A new world burst upon my agitated vision.”
From "In the Shadow of Liberty" by Kenneth C. Davis
Scott’s supporters enlisted, pro bono, the famous free-soil politician and lawyer Montgomery Blair to take his case, and under Blair’s legal leadership, Scott appealed to the U.S.
From New York Times ● Dec. 21, 2022
Slavery in the nearby territories bothered more midwesterners than the largely urban problem of immigration, and there the free-soil Whigs and Democrats forged antislavery alliances that soon coalesced as the Republican Party.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 18, 2018
The disposition of this new territory was in question; would the new states be slave states or free-soil states?
From Textbooks ● Dec. 30, 2014
Finally, in Kansas, the free-soil majority voted against the pro-slavery constitution in a fair election.
From Salon ● Feb. 21, 2011
The North wanted California admitted as a free-soil state.
From A School History of the United States by McMaster, John Bach
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
