?1700 S. Smith (title) The Religious Imposter..Dedicated to Doctor S—lm—n, and the rest of the new Religious Fraternity of Free-Thinkers, near Leather-Sellers-Hall..Printed..in the first year of Grace and Free Thinking.

1708 Brit. Apollo 27 Aug.–1 Sept. Free Thinking (to use the Modish Phrase)..is no better than a Sword in a Child's hand.

1758 T. Gray Let. 18 Aug. in Corr. (1971) II. 583 The mode of free-thinking is like that of Ruffs and Farthingales, and has given place to the mode of not thinking at all.

1773 Gentleman's Mag. 43 122 If, by free-thinking, Deism be meant.

1824 C. M. Sedgwick Redwood I. vi. 152 He concluded by insinuating a compliment upon the free-thinking which was so common among the enlightened of the doctor's profession.

1883 J. T. Morse Jefferson iv. 45 His biographers..have been at much pains to make him out a sound Christian in the teeth of many charges of free-thinking.

1927 New Republic 21 Sept. 124/2 The name of Paine was being put forth as the champion of free-thinking, against organized religion.

1973 B. Nimer et al. in T. D. Roberts et al. Area Handbk. Ivory Coast (ed. 2) i. viii. 131 Atheism, agnosticism or free thinking is extremely rare, confined to a few university graduates.

2002 V. Burr Person in Social Psychol. i. 6 The real explosion in scientific activity and free-thinking came in the period following the Renaissance, known as the Enlightenment.

1691 Linnen & Woollen Manufactory Discoursed 4 I would gladly offer it to the serious Consideration of any Honest, Unbyass'd and Free-thinking English-man.

1715 R. South 12 Serm. IV. 118 Our Free Thinking, and Freer Practising Age, in which People generally are ashamed of nothing; but to be Virtuous, and to be thought Old.

1752 F. Coventry Hist. Pompey the Little (ed. 3) ii. ix. 245 A free-thinking writer of moral essays.

1793 T. Pennant Lit. Life 4 I had..made a comparison between the free-thinking philosopher and our great and religious countryman Mr. Ray.

1831 W. M. Thackeray Let. 29 Sept. (1945) I. 161 If ever you become a Xtian dont be uncharitable towards your freethinking friends.

1873 G. P. Fisher Reformation i. 3 Melancthon professes his faith in astrology... But the free-thinking Pomponazzi..shared in this credulity.

1929 R. S. Lynd & H. M. Lynd Middletown xx. 317 The openly free-thinking group, represented in part in the Ethical Society of the nineties, has disappeared.

1979 M. Campion Making of Hospice xii. 56 She..attended lectures by Mrs. Annie Besant, the Socialist, free-thinking, estranged wife of a Church of England vicar.

2001 High Country News 9 Apr. 2/3 Well before her foray into journalism, Meadows made her mark as a freethinking academic.

1721 N. Amhurst Terræ-filius 18 Feb. Those heretical, pernicious, and free-thinking Tracts.

1783 G. Hay Sincere Christian (new ed.) I. xvii. §3. 255 Some people, of free-thinking principles,..seem much inclined to suppose, that sin requires little or no punishment in itself.

1847 W. M. Thackeray Vanity Fair (1848) xix. 164 He might make her repent of her shocking free-thinking ways; he might urge her to do her duty.

1882 Sat. Rev. 18 Nov. 671/1 Trashy freethinking productions.

1908 Times 24 Nov. 10/4 The doctrine may approximate to teaching of a frankly free-thinking character, or it may be merely fantastic.

1955 E. Fergusson Mexico Revisited xii. 115 His Maya features came from his father, along with some free-thinking ideas that were nourished by the village priest, who read modern books.

1990 P. Sotos in A. Parfrey Apocalypse Culture (rev. ed.) 56 Even S & M magazines have refused us as have most of the supposed freethinking rags.

2004 P. Hirsch & M. McBeth Teacher Training at Cambr. v. 56 If he took this approach, instead of modelling a free-thinking system in which multiple opinions could be heard, the standard patriarchal structure would remain in place.