6 For free is an informal phrase used to mean “without cost or payment.” These professionals were giving their time for free . The phrase is correct; you should not use it where you are supposed to only use a formal sentence, but that doesn’t make a phrase not correct. My company gives out free promotional items with the company name on it. Is this stuff called company swag or schwag? It seems that both come up as common usages—Google searching indicates that the. If so, my analysis amounts to a rule in search of actual usage—a prescription rather than a description. In any event, the impressive rise of ” free of” against ” free from” over the past 100 years suggests that the English-speaking world has become more receptive to using ” free of” in place of ” free from” during that period. What is the opposite of free as in ” free of charge” (when we speak about prices)? We can add not for negation, but I am looking for a single word. Items given away free , typically for promotional purposes, to people attending an event, using a service, etc. It’s especially common in reference to, e.g., the very nice “swag bags” of gifts received by movie stars visiting various marketing venues during Oscar season so it comes with some cachet. The fact that it was well-established long before OP’s 1930s movies is attested by this sentence in the Transactions of the Annual Meeting from the South Carolina Bar Association, 1886 And to-day, “ free white and twenty-one,” that slang phrase, is no longer broad enough to include the voters in this country. I don’t think there’s any difference in meaning, although ” free of charges” is much less common than ” free of charge”. Regarding your second question about context: given that English normally likes to adopt the shortest phrasing possible, the longer form ” free of charge” can be used as a means of drawing attention to the lack of demand for payment and thus giving it greater emphasis. 2 The two-word sign “take free ” in English is increasingly used in Japan to offer complimentary publications and other products. Is the phrase, which is considered kind of trendy in Japan, also used in English-speaking countries with the same meaning? Does it make sense to native English speakers? Free ride dates back to 1880, while free loader is a more recent construction “freeloader (n.) also free -loader, by 1939, from free (adj.) + agent noun from load (v.)As a verb, freeload is attested by 1967 and probably is a back-formation from this”. I got a bit mixed up just now regarding the difference between “complimentary” and “complementary”. My colleagues were arguing about the correct spelling of “complimentary drink” at a nightclub ev.