free agent

English

Noun

free agent (plural free agents)

  1. (sports) A professional athlete who is free to play for or sign a contract to play for any team.
    • 2025 July 14, Katie Baker, quoting Wall Street Journal, “The Summer of Free AI-gency”, in The Ringer‎[1]:
      Or, if that’s too cringe, you can put it like The Wall Street Journal did at the end of last month: “With this spending bonanza and frenzy of movement, AI geeks are being treated more like NBA free agents.”
  2. (philosophy) A person who acts freely, or without constraint to a higher power.
    • 1820 [1770], “Of the System of Man's free agency”, in The System of Nature‎[2], translation of Système de la Nature by Paul Henri Thiry Holbach:
      Nevertheless, in despite of the shackles by which he is bound, it is pretended he is a free agent, or that independent of the causes by which he is moved, he determines his own will; regulates his own condition.

Further reading

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