free-and-easy

free-and-easy (comparative more free-and-easy, superlative most free-and-easy)

1. Alternative form of free and easy
   • 1841 February–November, Charles Dickens, “Barnaby Rudge”, in Master Humphrey’s Clock, volume II, London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, chapter 10, page 289:

     He was […] none of your free-and-easy companions, who would scrape their boots upon the fire-dogs in the common room, […]

   • 1857, Bayard Taylor, chapter 20, in Northern Travel:

     The other passengers were three Norwegians, three fossil Englishmen, two snobbish do., and some jolly, good-natured, free-and-easy youths.

   • 1919, Henry B[lake] Fuller, “Cope Dines—and Tells About It”, in Bertram Cope’s Year: A Novel, Chicago, Ill.: Ralph Fletcher Seymour, The Alderbrink Press, →OCLC, page 63:

     He must have fancied me (from the racket I was making) as a sort of free-and-easy Hercules (which is not quite the case), if not as the whole football squad rolled into one.

free-and-easy (plural free-and-easies)

1. Alternative form of free and easy
   • 1850 September 14, [Charles Dickens], “Three “Detective” Anecdotes”, in Charles Dickens, editor, Household Words. A Weekly Journal., volume I, number 25, London: Office, […], →OCLC, section I (The Pair of Gloves), pages 577–578:

     ‘Then, perhaps,’ says I, taking the gloves out of my pocket, ‘you can tell me who cleaned this pair of gloves? It’s a rum story,’ I says. ‘I was dining over at Lambeth, the other day, at a free-and-easy—quite promiscuous—with a public company—when some gentleman, he left these gloves behind him! […]’