the.com/independent

means Not controlled by or reliant on others — able (or claiming) to think, act, decide, or survive on your own terms.

from Built from Latin in- ('not') plus dependent, from dependere ('to hang down from'), itself from de- ('down') and pendere ('to hang'). So dependent literally means 'hanging off something else' — like fruit hanging from a branch, held up by what it's attached to. Independent is the cut rope: nothing to hang from, nothing holding you up but yourself. The word entered English use for political and financial self-sufficiency alongside the newly fashionable idea, starting in the 1600s–1700s, that a person or nation could stand free of patrons, rulers, or masters.