footloose and fancy-free

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footloose and fancy-free without commitments or responsibilities; free to act or travel as one pleases. Footloose used literally in the late 17th century to mean ‘free to move the feet’, and was originally US (late 19th century) in this sense. The collocation with fancy-free (fancy in the sense of ‘love’ or ‘object of one's affections’) is recorded from the mid 20th century.

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