-FREE AND ITS POSSIBILITIES

 W.H. Fowler (1858-1933) was a grammarian, lexicographer, author of A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, and... a card! In his entry for "free", he says "a person who is not a slave, or serf" and gives examples: "At last I am a free man, i.e. have retired from business, lost my wife, etc." No comment. But I am interested in the word as some sort of suffix: "pain-free", "error-free", "glitch-free", "gluten-free", "sugar-free" which can be translated as "libre de" or "sin": "sin azúcar", "libre de errores", "sin dolor, indoloro"... It has many possibilities that Fowler did not delve into and which we should take advantage of.