liberal
Other forms: liberals
A liberal is someone on the left wing of politics — the opposite of a conservative. Also, a liberal attitude toward anything means more tolerance for change.
There are many meanings for liberal, but they mostly have to do with freedom and openness to change. A teacher with a liberal policy toward attendance is going to be forgiving of missed days. A bank with a liberal attitude toward your money would probably be bad: some things are awful if they're loose and free. But no one will give you a hard time if you use a liberal amount of catsup on your fries.
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showing or characterized by broad-mindedness“a liberal newspaper”
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synonyms:
broad, large-minded, tolerant
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broad-minded
inclined to respect views and beliefs that differ from your own
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broad-minded
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having political or social views favoring reform and progress
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synonyms:
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left
of or belonging to the political or intellectual left
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left
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tolerant of change; not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or tradition
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synonyms:
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civil-libertarian
having or showing active concern for protection of civil liberties protected by law
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liberalistic
having or demonstrating belief in the essential goodness of man and the autonomy of the individual; favoring civil and political liberties, government by law with the consent of the governed, and protection from arbitrary authority
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neoliberal
having or showing belief in the need for economic growth in addition to traditional liberalistic values
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progressive, reform-minded, reformist
favoring or promoting reform (often by government action)
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socialised, socialized
under group or government control
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welfare-statist, welfarist
of or relating to a welfare state
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left
of or belonging to the political or intellectual left
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antonyms:
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conservative
resistant to change
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blimpish
pompously ultraconservative and nationalistic
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buttoned-up
conservative in professional manner
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fusty, nonprogressive, standpat, unprogressive
old-fashioned and out of date
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hidebound, traditionalist
stubbornly conservative and narrow-minded
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ultraconservative
extremely conservative
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mainstream, orthodox
adhering to what is commonly accepted
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right
of or belonging to the political or intellectual right
- show more antonyms...
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civil-libertarian
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a person who favors a political philosophy of progress and reform and the protection of civil liberties
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synonyms:
liberalist, progressive
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antonyms:
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conservative, conservativist
a person who is reluctant to accept changes and new ideas
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types:
- show 5 types...
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armchair liberal
a person of liberal ideals who takes no action to realize them
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latitudinarian
a person who is broad-minded and tolerant (especially in standards of religious belief and conduct)
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neoliberal
a liberal who subscribes to neoliberalism
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pluralist
someone who believes that distinct ethnic or cultural or religious groups can exist together in society
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Whig
a member of the political party that urged social reform in 18th and 19th century England; was the opposition party to the Tories
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conservative, conservativist
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a person who favors an economic theory of laissez-faire and self-regulating markets
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given or giving freely“a liberal backer of the arts”
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synonyms:
big, bighearted, bounteous, bountiful, freehanded, giving, handsome, openhanded
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generous
willing to give and share unstintingly
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generous
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not literal
/ˈlɪbərəl/
/ˈlɪbərəl/
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Vocabulary lists containing liberal
The top 1,000 vocabulary words have been carefully chosen to represent difficult but common words that appear in everyday academic and business writing. These words are also the most likely to appear on the SAT, ACT, GRE, and ToEFL. To create this list, we started with the words that give our users the most trouble and then ranked them by how frequently they appear in our corpus of billions of words from edited sources. If you only have time to study one list of words, this is the list.
Arnold Spirit, Jr., a young cartoonist who lives on the Spokane Indian reservation, decides to transfer to a school in which he will be the only American Indian student.
A series of linked stories explores the lifelong effects of trauma on a platoon of soldiers during and after the Vietnam War.