free reign
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Eggcorn misconstruction of free rein (literally “relaxed reins (on a horse)”), confounding rein (“straps used in steering”) with reign (“rule”).
Noun[edit]
- (nonstandard, sometimes proscribed) Alternative form of free rein
Usage notes[edit]
Evidence from various corpora suggests that 25% (in 2008 per Google Books Ngram data[1]) to 46% (in 2007 per Oxford English Corpus data)[2] of uses of "free rein" or "free reign" in English texts are of "free reign", leading some references to consider it an acceptable variant spelling.
References[edit]
- ^ free rein,free reign,(free rein + free reign) at Google Ngram Viewer
- ^ Are We Giving Free Rei(g)n to New Spelling, October 18th, 2007, Ben Zimmer, OUPblog
Further reading[edit]
- Free Rein or Free Reign?
- National Dictionary Day: Do you spell “free reign” with a G?, 10/16/2007, ABC News