What does 'at large' mean?

We notice new meanings that have been recently added to words much more easily than we notice meanings that quietly slip away from the language. We now recognize that a mouse isn’t always a rodent, and that the web might not be made by spiders. We understand cookie and bug as software today just as easily as we recognize their older meanings; context is the key to understanding words with several meanings.

Take the word enlarge, for instance. Most people would understand it to mean “to make larger.” But the third definition in our own dictionary reveals a piece of linguistic history: “to set free” (as in “to enlarge a captive”), a meaning that has receded from current usage. Samuel Johnson’s dictionary of 1755 included the definition “to release from confinement,” and includes a quote from Shakespeare’s Henry V:

Enlarge the man committed yesterday that railed against our person. We consider it was excess of wine that set him on

The noun enlargement had a corresponding meaning (“release from confinement or servitude,” according to Johnson) that is used in both Shakespeare and the King James Bible:

At our enlargement what are thy due fees?—Henry VI Part 3

For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place—Esther 4:14

Largesse meaning “generosity” also contains the notion of freedom or lack of financial constraints: it’s not about having a “large” amount of money but rather being “free” with it.

These uses ultimately derive from uses of the word large that are now obsolete including “lax in conduct, loose,” and “coarse or vulgar,” both of which convey freedom or lack of constraint. The Oxford English Dictionary also records large as meaning “imposing few or no restrictions; allowing considerable freedom” and “free of an obligation or responsibility.”

A related historical sense of large is “well-to-do” or wealthy, probably the origin of the expression “living large.” In fact, among the oldest uses of large, dating back to the 1200s, is the meaning “liberal in giving; generous,” which is a synonym of the modern use of largesse. In fact, large meaning “freedom” is as old as the meaning we still use, “great in size.”

This use of large meaning “free” is the meaning behind the expression at large. A criminal who is “at large” is one who is not in custody—still free. Chaucer used the expression “at one’s large” with the same meaning in The Canterbury Tales, written in the late 1300s.

This idea of freedom is also behind job titles like “editor at large” or “critic at large” or “writer at large,” because they refer to someone without a narrow or specific subject or assignment for their work. This is also the origin of at large used to refer to a political office that does not represent a single or specific voting district, such as “member at large,” “councilor at large,” or “selectman at large.” This particular use is common enough that it has become lexicalized as an adjective, so that you can say, for example, “an at-large city councilor” or “an at-large election.”

Other uses of at large can mean something quite different. When we say “the society at large” or “the community at large,” we are referring to an entire group. In these cases, “at large” means “as a whole,” from large meaning “broad” or “comprehensive.”

Meanings of words can come and go over time, and with at large we see a use of large that has largely disappeared from modern use. Language develops in ways that are both wide and free.