free form
noun
a shape having an irregular contour, chiefly used in nonrepresentational art and industrial design.
free form
1 Americannoun
-
a shape having an irregular contour, chiefly used in nonrepresentational art and industrial design.
-
Linguistics. a linguistic form that can occur by itself, as fire, book, or run.
free-form
2
American
[free-fawrm, free-fawrm]
/ ˈfriˌfɔrm, ˈfriˈfɔrm /
Or
freeform
adjective
-
characterized by free form.
free-form sculpture.
-
not organized or planned in a conventional way.
a free-form international conglomerate.
-
encouraged to function or evolve without advance planning; spontaneous.
free-form management.
adverb
free form
British
noun
adjective
Etymology
Origin of free form1
First recorded in 1945–50
Origin of free-form2
First recorded in 1950–55
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.
See Examples For:
It was definitely free form, even in El Segundo, where Ian danced for the camera, and Adam grabbed the big cake knife and mussed his mother’s carefully pinned, self-styled hair.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 18, 2020
“Los Olvidados” progressed like a soap opera, one scene cutting into the seemingly unrelated next one — highlights being jet-speed free form and mournful march sections with beautiful solos from Shepp and a wah-wah-muted ElSaffar.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 11, 2019
For one moment, there is only the molten dawn sun lighting the sky a poet red and the air racing cooly past him as he drops in free form flight.
From Slate ● Feb. 19, 2018
So Twitter appears stuck between implementing some safeguards that could change the free form nature of its service and continuing to passively enable the harassment of its users.
From The Verge ● Jul. 22, 2016
It was for Bach and Händel practically a free form.
From A Popular History of the Art of Music From the Earliest Times Until the Present by W. S. B. (William Smythe Babcock) Mathews
Its asymmetrical, free-form plate-glass top rests on a base made of two identical, U-shaped wooden legs —a configuration that blurs distinctions between primitivism and classicism, the organic and the engineered, furniture and art.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 1, 2026
"The festival was on the cusp of being its original free-form, free-for-all, mad, chaotic environment to becoming considered a world-class music festival."
From BBC ● Jun. 28, 2026
In partnership with architects like Benjamin Albertson and Rad Studio, the robotic gantry system can produce more free-form designs than traditional construction, with tight curves, circles and other elements.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 9, 2025
The free-form jazz in the film makes the atmosphere almost farcical, a choice that feels even more strange when Bong introduces the apartment complex’s janitor, who has a taste for dog meat.
From Salon ● Mar. 25, 2025
Her spiky, free-form locs are improvisational jazz; they abide by no rules.
From "Split the Sky" by Marie Arnold
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.
