Definition of "free-and-easy" [free-and-easy]

• Unconventional; unrestrained; regardless of formalities. (adjective)
• Unconstrained and informal. Opposite of <ant>stiff</ant>, <ant>starchy</ant>, <ant>formal</ant>. (adjective)
• Lacking normal concern for propriety. (adjective)

Gnu Collaboartive International Dictionary of English: licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

• "Nonetheless, our system works so well that other nations are trying to move away from their harshly punitive treatment of insolvent debtors, and closer to our free-and-easy, all-is-forgiven model."
• "No more are the free-and-easy, dare-devil days, when fortunes were made in fast runs and lucky ventures, not alone for owners, but for captains as well."
• "Having spent all his life in cramped New England, where sharpness and shrewdness had been whetted to razor-edge on the harsh stone of meagre circumstance, he had found himself abruptly in the loose and free-and-easy West, where men thought in thousand-dollar bills and newsboys dropped dead at sight of copper cents."