free country

Noun

free country (plural free countries)

1. A country that protects the civil liberties of its citizens; a country whose government is not despotic.
   • Now we should like to know whether, in a free country like this, and under a government instituted for no earthly object but to establish equality of rights and equality of protection — we should like to know, we say, whether a poor man has not a vested interest in a cheap coat, and whether his...1840, Condy Raguet, The Principles of Free Trade
   • Such pride is expressed today in the praises to “the land of the free” sung before every baseball game, or the sometimes prickly, sometimes resigned commonplace that one can do or say whatever one wants because, after all, “It's a free country."2003, Kenneth Ira Kersch, Freedom of Speech: Rights and Liberties Under the Law, →ISBN, page 1
2. A sovereign or independent country.
   • The collapse of the imperialist colonial system has complicated the problem of marketing for capitalists in two ways. Positively from the angle of international monopoly capital, the struggle of the newly free countries for economic independence and their first steps towards the creation of a...1978, Clarence J. Munford, Production Relations, Class and Black Liberation, →ISBN
   • In doing so it has evoked conflicting sentiments: Kalyanaswamy is either portrayed as a wicked freebooter, spreading destruction wherever he went or as a noble 'freedom fighter' who had visions of a free country, purged of its colonial oppressions.1998, N. Shyam Bhat, South Kanara, 1799-1860: A Study in Colonial Administration and Regional Response, →ISBN