A gift or benefit for which no return is expected. This expression, dating from the early 1800s, alludes to the practice of taverns offering free food to their customers to induce them to buy more drinks. In today’s bars such offerings amount to little more than a bowl of peanuts or pretzels, if that, and indeed, figuratively the term is often used in a negative context—for example, “He’ll hardly offer you a job if you don’t contribute to his party; there’s no free lunch in political campaigns.” The economist Milton Friedman went even further, declaring “There’s no such thing as a free lunch” (attributed).