This article is about the occupation. For the video game, see Freelancer (computer game).

A freelancer or freelance worker is a self-employed person working in a profession or trade in which full-time employment is also common. The term was first coined by Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) in his well-known historical romance Ivanhoe to describe a "medieval mercenary warrior." The phrase later transitioned to a figurative noun around the 1860s then officially recognized as a verb in 1903 by various authorities in etymology (e.g., Oxford University). Only in modern times has the term migrated into a noun (a freelancer), various verb forms (a journalist who freelances), and adverb (she worked freelance).

The author and poet Ernest William Hornung (1866 - 1921) also used the term in "The Gift of the Emperor" to describe something of poor quality: "I warmed to my woes. It was no easy matter to keep your end up as a raw freelance of letters; for my part, I was afraid I wrote neither well enough nor ill enough for success."