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A person who believes that human beings have free will.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Examples
- 2006, John Taylor: The Mind: A User’s Manual, Chichester: John Wiley, Part 3, Chapter 18, p. 205, Causality and determinism, in a quantum framework, persist down to the very shortest distances that experiments have been performed in high-energy particle accelerators. I see no way that a person could employ forces above (or even approximately near) what are achieved in those gigantic particle machines to achieve the dream of the free willers: uncaused processes.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: determinist
A person who exercises free will.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Examples
- 1847, Ralph Waldo Emerson, journal entry dated May 1847, in Stephen E. Whicher (ed.), Selections from Ralph Waldo Emerson: An Organic Anthology, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957, p. 310, The Americans are free-willers, fussy, self-asserting, buzzing all round creation.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
A person belonging to a sect that rejected the doctrine of predestination.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: derogatory, historical
Topics: Christianity, Protestantism
Examples
- 1614, John Robinson, Of Religious Communion Private, & Publique, “Of the Baptism of Infants,” p. 96[a], Since all are by nature alike children of wrath, I would know of these free-willers, how some become the children of God, & beleevers, & some abyde vnder the wrath of God?
- 1675, Richard Baxter, Richard Baxter’s Catholick Theologie, London: Nevill Simmons, “Of Natural Corruption and Impotency, and Free-will,” The third Crimination, p. 125, And is it not then a horrid shame, to hear honest people so seduced into Love-killing factious sidings by their Teachers, as that Boys and Women speak of wiser and better persons with disaffection and reproach, saying, O he is a Free-willer, or he holdeth Free-will, when they know not what they talk of: but are made believe that it is some monstrous impious Opinion, making a man almost an Heretick?
- 1779, Isaac Watts, undated letter to Enoch Watts, in Posthumous Works, London: T. Becket and J. Bew, Volume 2, p. 153, There was one Pelagius of old, that invented several opinions about free-will, and against free-grace, those that followed him strictly were called Pelagians; those that allowed more to free-grace were called Semi-Pelagians, almost the same with modern Armenians, called also Remonstrants, and by the common people Free-willers. Their notions are, that God elects none to salvation but on the account of that faith he foresees in them.
- 1862, Philip Cater, Punch in the Pulpit, London: William Freeman, Letter 1, p. 19, [...] let a man be deeply imbued with the spirit of hyper-calvinism, and he will treat those whom he deems mistaken brethren, with ridicule and contempt; he will call them “free-willers,” “duty-faith men,” &c.; he will give them all sorts of nicknames, and cover them with all sorts of religious abuse.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: Arminian, Pelagian, Remonstrant, Semipelagian
Antonyms: Calvinist, predestinarian
An immigrant to the United States who, upon arrival, voluntarily became an indentured servant.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: US, historical
Examples
- 1770, William Eddis, letter dated 20 September, 1770 in Letters from America, Historical and Descriptive, comprising occurrences from 1769, to 1777, inclusive, London: for the author, 1792, pp. 63-64, Persons in a state of servitude are under four distinct denominations: negroes, who are the entire property of their respective owners: convicts, who are transported from the mother country for a limited term: indented servants, who are engaged for five years previous to their leaving England; and free-willers, who are supposed, from their situation, to possess superior advantages.
- 1889, Andrew D. Mellick Jr., Story of an Old Farm or Life in New Jersey in the Eighteenth Century, Somerville, NJ: The Unionist-Gazette, Chapter 11, p. 150, Alas! the “free-willers,” with rare exceptions, had a rude awakening on reaching the colonies. Under their agreements, the captains had a legal lien on the persons of the immigrants until the ship charges were paid; consequently they were not allowed to go on shore, but were exposed to view on deck to the people who came on board in search of servants.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: redemptioner
Antonyms: none provided
