Said of a capability of a programming languaGE or hardware equipment that is available by its design without needing cleverness to implement: "In APL, we GEt the matrix operations for free." "And owing to the way revisions are stored in this system, you GEt revision trees for free." The term usually refers to a serendipitous feature of doing things a certain way (compare big win), but it may refer to an intentional but secondary feature. [Jargon File] (1994-12-14)