{
  "id": "free.unconstrained",
  "term": "free",
  "sense": "unconstrained",
  "pos": "adjective",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 5,
  "arena": "concept",
  "domain": "everyday",
  "style": null,
  "definition": "When matter is not bound by a boundary or control, it can move in space and remain.",
  "folk_gloss": null,
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "boundary.limit",
      "control.ability",
      "motion.movement",
      "matter.substance",
      "persist.continue",
      "space.extent"
    ],
    "interaction": "When a boundary does not constrain and a control does not restrict, matter can persistently move through space.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "unrestricted motion",
      "continuous existence in space",
      "independence from containment"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "The Voyager 1 probe travels through interstellar space without propulsion after escaping Earth's gravity in 1977.",
      "domain": "spaceflight"
    },
    {
      "text": "Electrons in a superconductor move without resistance below 9K, as in mercury cooled by liquid helium.",
      "domain": "physics"
    },
    {
      "text": "Feral horses roam freely across the Pryor Mountains Wild Horse Range in Montana and Wyoming.",
      "domain": "ecology"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "boundary.limit",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "free is opposed to being limited by a boundary"
    },
    {
      "id": "motion.movement",
      "type": "enables",
      "note": "free allows movement without restriction"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [
    "available.accessible",
    "entertainment.leisure",
    "mobile.movement",
    "playful.behavioral",
    "recreation.leisure",
    "rights.moral"
  ],
  "forms": [
    "free",
    "freed",
    "freeing",
    "frees"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "openrouter:openai/gpt-oss-120b",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 0.6,
    "reconciled": {
      "by": "openrouter:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
      "date": "2026-07-31",
      "changed": "components",
      "note": "Added missing constitutive concepts (matter.substance, persist.continue, space.extent) to align components with definition's actual semantic commitments. Definition slightly tightened but kept intact."
    }
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-free.unconstrained"
}