Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Given to self-indulgence.
- adjective Living independently of another organism; not part of a parasitic or symbiotic relationship.
- adjective Moving independently; not sessile.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Living in a free or unrestrained manner.
- In biology, living free from and independent of the parent, as a medusa-bud separated from the polyp-stock upon which it grew.
- noun Full gratification of the appetite.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective (Biology) Living independently of other organisms; not parasitic or commensal.
- noun Unrestrained indulgence of the appetites as a way of life.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective biology (of an organism) That
lives independently of otherorganisms rather than part of asymbiotic orparasitic relationship
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a lifestyle given to easy indulgence of the appetites
- adjective not parasitic on another organism
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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Even terms such as wildlife are dismissed as insulting to the animals concerned -- who should instead be known as 'free-living,' the academics, including an Oxford professor, suggest.
The Globe and Mail - Home RSS feed Michael Kesterton 2011
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You remember how Stevens passed out last year — free-living and easy, everybody's friend but his own.
ON THE MAKALOA MAT 2010
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But there is no single currency by which we can measure the benefit of saving human lives against the cost of destroying forests that provide the last remaining refuges for free-living chimpanzees, orangutans or Sumatran tigers.
Does Helping the Planet Hurt the Poor? Peter Singer 2011
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Moreover, almost all free-living animals are host to one or more parasite taxa.
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Mitochondria started out as free-living, oxygen-consuming bacteria that somehow became residents in our single-celled ancestors.
The Visitors That Came to Stay Carl Zimmer 2011
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Most impressive was the prediction that a free-living transposon homologous to RAG would exist.
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With inimitable style, Lovelace describes a stomach as “flopping like a halibut in an ice chest,” and rain falling on a roof “like a giant herd of tiny, tiny horses running circles of free-living gallop.”
The OLM Blog 2009
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Most impressive was the prediction that a free-living transposon homologous to RAG would exist.
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Mitochondria started out as free-living, oxygen-consuming bacteria that somehow became residents in our single-celled ancestors.
The Visitors That Came to Stay Carl Zimmer 2011
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Herds of mixed age and sex, varying in size from 100 to 10000 animals, are free-living and range in natural mountain pasture all year round.
Climate change and reindeer nomadism in Finnmark, Norway 2010
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