What is "free indirect speech"

n. A style of indirect speech which imitates direct speech, converted to third-person.

Free indirect speech is a style of third-person narration which uses some of the characteristics of third-person along with the essence of first-person direct speech. (It is also referred to as free indirect discourse, free indirect style, or discours indirect libre in French.) Randall Stevenson suggests, however, that the term free indirect discourse "is perhaps best reserved for instances where words have actually been spoken aloud" and that cases "where a character's voice is probably the silent inward one of thought" should be described as free indirect style.