a. [f. FREE a. + BORN ppl. a.; cf. Ger. freigeboren.]

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  1.  Born free, born to the conditions and privileges of citizenship, inheriting liberty.

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a. 1300.  Cursor Mundi, 9497 (Trin.).

        Fre born to be & not bonde
þat shulde in court shewe his eronde.

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c. 1410.  Sir Cleges, 399. I am your man fre born.

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1612.  Rowlands, More Knaues Yet? (1613), 3.

        Nor to this Maddam, and the tother Lady,
My freeborne Muse is no such seruile baby.

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a. 1720.  Sheffield (Dk. Buckhm.), Wks. (1753), I. 299.

        That free-born spirits should obey
  Wretches, who know not to sway!

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1794.  Bloomfield, Amer. Law Rep., 14. The Court do adjudge that the said Negro Peter was free-born.

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1871.  B. Taylor, Faust (1875), II. III. 178.

        To me, a free-born Cretan, did that journey bring
Imprisonment, as well,—protracted slavery.

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  2.  Pertaining to or befitting a free-born man.

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c. 1510.  Robin Hood, 1, in Arb., Garner, VI. 423.

        Lithe and listen, Gentlemen,
That be of free-born blood!
I shall you tell of a good yeoman;
His name was ROBIN HOOD.

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1605.  1st Pt. Jeronimo, in Dodsley, O. Pl. (1780), III. 98.

        O, let our fathers’ scandal ne’er be seen
As a base blush upon our free-born cheeks!

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1621.  Brathwait, Nat. Embass., Ded. (1641), A ij. Professed fauorer and furtherer of all freeborne studies.

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1781.  Gibbon, Decl. & F., III. lii. 275. When the Arabian conquerors had spread themselves over the East, and were mingled with the servile crowds of Persia, Syria, and Egypt, they insensibly lost the free-born and martial virtues of the desert.

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1813.  Scott, Rokeby, I. xvii.

        The wily priests their victim sought,
And damned each freeborn deed and thought.

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