liberal

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   Pertaining to those arts and sciences the study of which is considered to provide general knowledge, as opposed to vocational/occupational, technical or mechanical training.

   He had a full education studying the liberal arts.

2. 2
   adj

   Generous; permitting liberty; willing to give unsparingly.

   He was liberal with his compliments.

3. 3
   adj

   Ample, abundant; generous in quantity.

   Add a liberal sprinkling of salt.

4. 4
   adj

   Unrestrained, licentious.

   Myself, my brother, and this grieved count, Did see her, hear her, at that hour last night, Talk with a ruffian at her chamber-window; Who hath indeed, most like a liberal villain, Confess'd the vile encounters they have had A thousand times in secret.

5. 5
   adj

   Widely open to new ideas, willing to depart from established opinions or conventions; permissive.

   Her parents had liberal ideas about child-rearing.

6. 6
   adj

   Open to political or social changes and reforms associated with either classical or modern liberalism.

   Endorsing the liberal anti-interventionist credo that the marketplace should act as the "site of verification," the advocates of white lead opposed government intervention for the sake of open economic competition, which they claimed revealed its true value and thus should be the sole determinant: "When the railways were built, the stage coaches disppeared; they died a timely death. If zinc white is truly superior to white lead, it will kill us in the marketplace, but the government should not intervene." These were the words of Expert-Bezançon, in his February 1903 deposition to the parliamentary committee examining the bill for banning lead-based pigments in paint.

7. 7
   noun

   Someone with progressive or left-wing views, especially on social and environmental issues.

   And I love Puerto Ricans and Negros As long as they don't move next door. So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal.

8. 8
   adj

   showing or characterized by broad-mindedness

Etymology

The adjective is from Old French liberal, from Latin līberālis (“befitting a freeman”), from līber (“free”); it is attested since the 14th century. The noun is first attested in the 1800s.