unfree
Americanadjective
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lacking liberty or freedom; under bondage or authoritarian rule; not having any personal choice.
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not free of charge; costing something.
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.
They had just fought a civil war over slavery, but Chinese immigration comes to be portrayed in the national press and in public opinion over time as unfree immigration.
From Slate • Mar. 16, 2026
With her long, frizzy hair, musicality and earth-mother vibe, Ms. King fit in, though she was comparatively unfree, being “a single mother when most of the women around her were not.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 16, 2025
The myth of a free man in an unfree society.
From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 7, 2025
“For creative young people it’s a place they can come to find like-minded citizens and to get away from what’s happening in our country. It’s a little island of freedom in an unfree environment.”
From BBC • Jun. 3, 2024
Not only were Russian farms run on unfree labor, but they used very simple, old-fashioned methods of farming.
From "Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science" by Marc Aronson
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.
