The story
- Proto-Indo-European*preyH-
- Proto-Indo-European*priHós
- Proto-Germanic*frijwaz
- Proto-West Germanic*friu
- Old Englishfrēo
- Middle Englishfre
- Englishfree
- Latinlancea
- Old Frenchlance
- Middle Englishlaunce
- Englishlance
- English todayfreelance
From free + lance. Coined by Walter Scott (1771–1832) in Ivanhoe (1819; see quotation) to describe a medieval mercenary warrior or "free-lance" (indicating that the lance is not sworn to any lord's services). It changed to a figurative noun around the 1860s and was recognized as a verb in 1903 by authorities such as the Oxford English Dictionary. In modern times the term has morphed into an adjective, a verb, and an adverb, as well as the derivative noun freelancer.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.