free rein

noun

|Updated on: 19 Jun 2018

Definition of free rein

: unrestricted liberty of action or decision

Recent Examples of free rein from the Web

Daley, in particular, had free rein in Springfield—witness the legislation that enabled him to plow over 10 percent of suburban Bensenville to expand O’Hare.

— ben joravsky, Chicago Reader, "Clout City / Politics / News Could Dems survive without Michael Madigan at the top?," 11 June 2018
Additional easing, like giving foreign securities firms freer rein to enter new businesses, will follow by year-end.

— Bloomberg.com, "ECB’s Draghi Expects Growth to Remain Solid and Broad-Based," 26 Apr. 2018
Szarkowski had always been a distinctive stylist, but this format enabled him to give free rein to his talents as a writer, which were usually securely tethered by curatorial obligation.

— geoff dyer, New York Times, "The Magic of Books Where Photography Meets Essays," 18 Apr. 2018
Taking over for Terrance Hayes this summer, Dove has free rein to select a new poem that will appear in the magazine each week, along with her short introduction.

— krista stevens, Longreads, "Rita Dove on Creating a ‘Collage of American Consciousness’ with Poetry," 28 May 2018
By tradition, the former chief executive leaves the board and leaves the building, giving the new captain free rein to set GE’s direction.

— geoff colvin, Fortune, "What the Hell Happened at GE?," 24 May 2018
Federal, state, and local officials were given free rein to enforce the state and national laws passed in the program’s wake, chief among which was the 1918 Chamberlain-Kahn Act.

— kim kelly, The New Republic, "A Forgotten War on Women," 22 May 2018
Lawton Chiles assembled a team separate from the attorney general’s office and gave them free rein to go after the tobacco industry, which had gone decades without ever losing a case.

— lawrence mower, miamiherald, "Pam Bondi’s opioid lawsuit? Some of Florida’s top lawyers won’t touch it | Miami Herald," 14 May 2018
For the second consecutive year, Hilcorp Energy had free rein over Alaska's annual Cook Inlet oil and gas lease sale.

— author: elwood brehmer, Anchorage Daily News, "Hilcorp again the lone bidder in Cook Inlet lease sale," 9 May 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'free rein.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.