freeborn

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   born free rather than into slavery or bondage

   The law distinguished the freeborn citizen from a person born into slavery.

2. 2
   adj

   possessing the status or rights of a free person by birth

   Only a freeborn resident could hold that civic office under the old constitution.

A native compound of free + born. Its legal and historical force contrasts status acquired at birth with enslavement or later manumission, and it often describes the civic rights attached to being born a free member of a community.

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