freelancing

Meanings

1. 1noununcountable

   The way of earning a living by taking separate jobs for different clients instead of working for one employer.

   Grammar: No article or plural: she prefers freelancing to an office job.

   Patterns

   • go into freelancing
   • freelancing as something

   After ten years in an agency, she moved into freelancing.

   Freelancing gives me freedom but no paid holidays.

   He does some freelancing on the side.

2. 2verbintransitive

   The -ing form of freelance: working for several clients rather than one employer.

   Grammar: Used in continuous tenses: he is freelancing for two magazines.

   Patterns

   • be freelancing for someone
   • be freelancing as something

   She is freelancing as a translator this year.

   I have been freelancing since I left the paper.

   He spent the summer freelancing for a design studio.

Common combinations

full-time freelancing

He went into full-time freelancing last spring.

freelancing work

Freelancing work can be unpredictable.

freelancing career

Her freelancing career started with a blog.

freelancing platform

He found clients on a freelancing platform.

take up freelancing

Many parents take up freelancing for flexibility.

Synonyms and how they differ

self-employment

Self-employment covers any business you run yourself, while freelancing means selling your own services job by job.

contracting

Contracting often means longer fixed agreements with one client, while freelancing is usually shorter and varied.

gig work

Gig work suggests short, app-based tasks and is more casual than freelancing.

Opposites

Word family

freelance verb

to work as a freelancer

freelance adjective

working for several clients

freelancer noun

a person who freelances

freelance adverb

on a freelance basis

Commonly confused: freelancing or free-lance?

Practice

Make it your own

Write a sentence using “freelancing”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.

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