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1. The fall of a body within the atmosphere without a drag-producing device such as a parachute.
2. The ideal falling motion of a body that is subject only to the earth's gravitational field.
3. Rapid uncontrolled decline:"The markets threatened to go into free fall and we came within an eyelash of ... an uncontrollable panic"(Felix Rohatyn).
Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:
The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.