not dependent on or conditioned by or relative to anything else
not contingent
free from external control and constraint; "an independent mind"; "a series of independent judgments"; "fiercely independent individualism"; "an independent republic"
(of a clause) capable of standing syntactically alone as a complete sentence; "the main (or independent) clause in a complex sentence has at least a subject and a verb"
take the place or move into the position of; "Smith replaced Miller as CEO after Miller left"; "the computer has supplanted the slide rule"; "Mary replaced Susan as the team's captain and the highest-ranked player in the school"