a. [cf. plain spoken.] Accustomed to speak plainly and without reserve. Hence Free-spokenness.
1625. Bacon, Apophthegms, § 176. The Emperor fell into discourse of the injustice and tyranny of the former time, and by name of the two accusers; and said; What should we do with them, if we had them now? One of them that were at supper, and was a free-spoken senator, said; Marry, they should sup with us.
1641. Milton, Animad. Rem. Def., Wks. 1738, I. 79. Who could be angry therfore, but those that are guilty, with these free-spoken and plain-hearted Men that are the Eyes of their Country, and the Prospective-glasses of their Prince?
1856. Grote, Greece, II. xcvi. XII. 508. By the deplorable conclusion of the Lamian war, the slaughter of the free-spoken orators, [etc.].
1863. Hawthorne, Our Old Home, 269. In our refined era, just the same as at that more free-spoken epoch, this singular people [England] has a certain contempt for any fine-strained purity.
1882. J. H. Blunt, Ref. Ch. Eng., II. 486. The Court had long been used to the free-spokenness of Queen Elizabeth and King James.
