free spirit

Noun

free spirit (plural free spirits)

1. One who is a nonconformist or who does not recognize the authority of others.
   • But Lucifer was a free spirit. To serve was to suffocate.1904, Jack London, chapter 26, in The Sea-Wolf (Macmillan’s Standard Library), New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, →OCLC
   • —“And thou,” said Zarathustra to the wanderer and shadow, “thou callest and thinkest thyself a free spirit? And thou here practisest such idolatry and hierolatry?1917, Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by Thomas Common, Thus Spake Zarathustra

   Synonyms:

   eccentric, heteroclite, individualist, deviant, deviate, maverick, misfit, nonconformist, offbeat

2. (historical) A member of the organized heretic movement Brethren of the Free Spirit in opposition of the Catholic Church from the 13th to 15th centuries.
   • Free spirits sought paradise with the claim that only through the affirmation of sin could one negate it. The partisan of the Free Spirit did not incarnate sin. He […] incarnated God.1989, Greil Marcus, “The assault on Notre-Dame”, in Lipstick Traces, Faber & Faber, published 2009