freelage

freelage noun: privilege; immunity; franchise; the freedom or privilege of a burgess in a corporation.

Noun

freelage (countable and uncountable, plural freelages)

(Northern England, Scotland) Privilege; immunity; franchise; the freedom or privilege of a burgess in a corporation.
(Northern England, Scotland) A heritable property (as distinguished from a farm).

Adjective

freelage (comparative more freelage, superlative most freelage)

(Northern England, Scotland) Heritable.

Forms of freelage

Noun
plural	freelages
alternative form	freeledge
alternative form	freelege
alternative form	freelidge
alternative form	frelidge
Adjective
comparative	more freelage
superlative	most freelage

Origin of freelage

From earlier frelage, probably from Middle English *freolache, *freleche, deverbal of Middle English *freolachen, *frelechen (“to be liberal, be generous”) (compare Middle English freolac, freolaic, vreoleic, freolec (“liberality, generosity”)), from Old English *frēolǣċan (“to give freely, offer generously”); equivalent to free + Middle English -leche, related to English -lock. Related to Old English frēolāc (“free-will offering, oblation”). Compare knowledge.

Questions about freelage

What does freelage mean?: Freelage means privilege; immunity; franchise; the freedom or privilege of a burgess in a corporation.
What part of speech is freelage?: Freelage can be a noun or an adjective.
What is the plural of freelage?: The plural of freelage is freelages.

Words near freelage in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: freelage (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “freelage.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/freelage. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.