[f. freed, pa. pple. of FREE v. + MAN sb.] A man who has been a slave and is manumitted, an emancipated slave.
1601. Holland, Pliny, I. 245. Optatus his freed man (who sometime had bin a slaue of his).
1794. Sullivan, View Nat., II. 63. From time immemorial, old nurses have been well acquainted with the virtues of flannel. They never, indeed, dreamed, it generated electricity, any more than the freedman of Tiberius, who pretended to know, that the shock of the torpedo would dissipate the gout.
1834. Lytton, Pompeii, I. i. He thinks with his feasts and his wine cellars to make us forget that he is the son of a freedman.
1870. Whittier, Soc. Friends, Pr. Wks. 1889 III. 307. I rejoice … in the precious opportunities afforded of working with the Divine Providence for the Freedmen and Indians.
