the.com/freefall
the only flying you'll ever do without permission, and the most honest.
means A state of falling under gravity alone, with nothing slowing your descent — used literally of skydivers and falling objects, and figuratively of anything dropping fast and uncontrollably, like prices or morale.
from A transparent compound of "free" and "fall," built from the same plain Germanic stock that gave English both words. It came into technical use describing motion governed by gravity and nothing else — the body simply released to the pull of the Earth. The figurative sense, a market or spirit plunging without a floor in sight, followed naturally: the word already carried the dread of nothing-to-catch-you.
- terminal velocity
- belly-down humans cap around 120 mph
- weightless lie
- gravity still pulls; you just stop resisting
- no wind
- the rush is your own falling air
- safe limit
- freefall feels calm until the ground argues
- space trick
- orbiting astronauts are in permanent freefall