freelancer

noun

free·​lanc·​er ˈfrē-ˌlan(t)-sər 

plural freelancers

1

: a person who pursues a profession without a long-term commitment to any one employer : freelance sense 1

hired a freelancer to write the article

… there were hundreds of photographers on the scene, some on assignment, some freelancers, most of them amateurs.

—Garrison Keillor

But while Renzo is the ultimate company man, a lifetime employee who reports to the same office every morning, Riccardo is the prototypical freelancer, a peripatetic problem-solver with five-dozen clients.

—Bruce Schoenfeld

2

: a person who acts independently without being affiliated with or authorized by an organization : freelance sense 2b

[Anthony] Grafton contrasts public intellectuals outside and inside the universities, and he takes note of today's nostalgia for the freethinkers who lived and wrote independently of deans and classrooms. But it is good to be reminded that in that golden era of freelancers such as Wilson, H. L. Mencken, and Mary McCarthy, voices like theirs were also raised in universities.

—G. W. Bowersock

Examples of freelancer in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Specialized solutions for particular industry verticals (e.g., digital goods, gaming, freelancer payments). —Victor Orlovski, Forbes, 18 Mar. 2025

As of Saturday, all employees could not access VOA headquarters in Washington, D.C. All VOA freelancers and stringers worldwide, and those with monthly contracts or assignments, have to stop working because there is now no way to pay them, the source added. —Camilla Schick, CBS News, 15 Mar. 2025

At the time several freelancers like me would pack in every morning, each in our own booths. —Amy Drew Thompson, Orlando Sentinel, 7 Mar. 2025

Tab Media relied mostly on unpaid student freelancers. —Sam Knight, The New Yorker, 6 Mar. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1924, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for freelancer

• enhancer
• merganser
• romancer
• anser
• answer
• cancer
• dancer
• lancer
• anticancer
• necromancer