Antedating of "Free World"

[Fred Shapiro]

free world (OED 1955)

1947 _Time_ 23 June  In Bulgaria (see above) and elsewhere, there might be
tranquillity of a sort, even behind iron bars. But did much of the world
want to be calm on such terms? In the free world, many men, trying to get
the issues straight in their minds, were attempting definitions. None put
the strength of the free world's case better than did U.S. Statesman &
Churchman John Foster Dulles this week, in a speech at Northwestern
University.

NOTE: Before the "non-Communist world" sense, this was used in World War
II to mean the "world not dominated by the Axis," as illustrated by the
following citation:

1941 _Time_ 10 Mar.  The Canadian press had been the most "patriotically"
docile in the free world.

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE BOOK OF QUOTATIONS
   Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
Yale Law School                             forthcoming
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
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