(sometimes initial capital letters) a church free from state control.
(sometimes initial capital letters) a dissenting or nonconforming church.
(initial capital letters) Also Free Kirk (in Scotland) the church established by those who left the Church of Scotland in 1843.
An Americanism dating back to 1825–35
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
We stand for a free pulpit and a free church.
From Time Magazine Archive
A 1967 graduate of the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, York has been backed by a number of local churches in operating a "free church" that ministers to Berke ley hippies.
From Time Magazine Archive
This answer was considered by the free church evasive; and its more ardent supporters on the spot pronounced the course of the local presbytery jesuitical and dishonest.
From The History of Tasmania, Volume I by West, John
I was thinking, wouldn't a chapel—that is, a little church—a little free church, at Meadow Park be a good thing?
From Pine Needles by Warner, Susan
Then some of his presbyterian friends asked him why he should even do so much as this, when he would take no such steps for the moderator of the free church.
From The Life of William Ewart Gladstone (Vol 2 of 3) by Morley, John
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.
