Freedom is native English assembled from native parts: free, from Old English freo, plus -dom, the Old English ending -dom that turns a word into a name for a state, condition or realm. The same ending gives kingdom, wisdom and boredom, and the Germanic languages built their equivalents identically — Old Frisian fridom, Dutch vrijdom.
The word is Old English in both form and meaning, but the meaning has climbed. In Old English freodom was the power of self-determination and, concretely, emancipation from slavery. The political sense of exemption from arbitrary or despotic control — civil liberty — is late 1300s, and the sense of possessing particular privileges, as in the freedom of a city, is from the 1570s. It is a good example of native vocabulary doing abstract work, which the guide's rule of thumb might not lead you to expect.
freedom (n.) Old English freodom "power of self-determination, state of free will; emancipation from slavery, deliverance;" see free (adj.) + -dom . Meaning "exemption from arbitrary or despotic control, civil liberty" is from late 14c. Meaning "possession of particular privileges" is from 1570s. Similar formation in Old Frisian fridom , Dutch vrijdom , Middle Low German vridom . It has been said by some physicians, that life is a forced state. The same may be said of freedom. It requires efforts, it presupposes mental and moral qualities of a high order to be generally diffused in the society where it exists. [John C. Calhoun, speech, U.S. House of Representatives, Jan. 31, 1816] [F]reedom is only truly freedom when it appears against the background of an artificial limitation. [T.S. Eliot, "Reflections on 'Vers Libre'"] Freedom fighter attested by 1903 (originally with reference to Cuba). Freedom-loving (adj.) is from 1841. Freedom-rider is recorded from 1961 in reference to civil rights activists in U.S. trying to integrate bus lines.
freedom came in through Old English, and its spelling follows that family's conventions.
How that family writes these sounds
| an abstract noun built on a plain word | -ness, -hood, -dom, -shipkindness, childhood, freedom |
What gives it away on the page
| -ness, -hood, -ship, -dom, -less, -ful | Native suffixes. A Latin root wearing one of these has been naturalised.kindness, childhood, freedom |
Old English in the spelling guide · guess another word's family