free run

[AlexanderIII]

Dear all,
this is from the story The House of the Head by Josh Malerman. Elivie was given a dollhouse. Ethan is one of the "people" living there.

And yet, she finally decided to place Ethan’s bed in the den, giving him free run of the entire first floor of the dollhouse.

I guess free run means he could feel free to move all around the first floor of the dollhouse. Is this correct?

 

[Glasguensis]

Free run in this context means that all of the first floor was « assigned » to him: he could literally run around without anyone having grounds to object.

 

[AlexanderIII]

I see. Thank you, Glasguensis.

 

[PaulQ]

free run of (idiom) = unrestricted and unsupervised occupancy and use of

 

[AlexanderIII]

I see. Thank you, PaulQ.