Liberty definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

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Definitions (44)

American Heritage Dictionary (11)

noun The condition of being free from restriction or control.
noun The right and power to act, believe, or express oneself in a manner of one's own choosing.
noun The condition of being physically and legally free from confinement, servitude, or forced labor. See Synonyms at freedom.

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Century Dictionary (27)

The state of being free, or exempt from external restraint or constraint, physical or moral; freedom; especially, exemption from opposition or irksome restraint of any kind. The creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Rom. viii. 21. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. Gal. v. 1. I must have liberty Withal, as large a charter as the wind, To blow on whom I please. Shak., As you Like it, ii. 7. 47. The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of Nature for his rule. Locke, Of Government, II. iv. 22. 'Tis liberty alone that gives the flower Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume. Cowper, Task, v. 446. The French notion of liberty is political equality; the English notion is personal independence. W. R. Greg, Misc. Essays, 2d ser., p. 89.
Specifically Freedom of the will; the power of election or free choice, undetermined by any necessity; exemption from internal compulsion or restraint in willing or volition. Liberty … is the power a man has to do or forbear doing any particular action, according as its doing or forbearance has the actual preference in the mind. Locke, Human Understanding, II. xxi. 15. Freedom from necessity is also called liberty of election, or power to choose, and implies freedom from anything invincibly determining a moral agent. It has been distinguished into liberty of contrariety, or the power of determining to do either of two actions which are contrary, as right or wrong, good or evil; and liberty of contradiction, or the power of determining to do either of two actions which are contradictory, as to walk or to sit still, to walk in one direction or in another. Freedom from necessity is sometimes also called liberty of indifference, because, before he makes his election, the agent has not determined in favor of one action more than of another. Fleming, Vocab. Philos.
The condition of being exempt, as a community or an individual, from foreign or arbitrary political control; a condition of political self-government. Civil liberty implies the subjection of the individual members of a community to laws imposed by the community as a whole; but it does not imply the assent of each individual to these laws. An individual has civil liberty if he is a member of a community which possesses such liberty, and is in the enjoyment of the rights which the laws of the community guarantee him. If not equal all, yet free, Equally free; for orders and degrees Jar not with liberty. Milton, P. L., v. 793. Real liberty is neither found in despotism, nor in the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments. A. Hamilton, Works, II. 416. Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable. D. Webster, Second Speech on Foote's Resolution.

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Examples (50)

The day we lose our willingness to fight for our liberty will be the day we lose it. — Latest Articles
"He's already been in front of you where his liberty was at stake," she said. — UnionLeader.com -- RSS feeds -- New Hampshire news, business and sports
A cornerstone of this liberty is the right to own and use property, because "if therefore we yield up our temporal property, we at the same time deliver the conscience into bondage." — Latest Articles
But a greater threat to my liberty is a warrantless taping of my private communications. — MyDD
Your liberty is a condition of your actions, marked by the absence of laws and rules imposed on you by other people that restrict, under the sanctions of force and punishment, your capacity to make your own choices. — LewRockwell.com

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freedom · happiness · justice · prosperity · privilege · religion · faith · truth · education · democracy · dignity · honor

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

American Heritage Dictionary (1)

Middle English liberte, from Old French, from Latin lībertās, from līber, free; see leudh- in Indo-European roots.

Century Dictionary (1)

from Middle English liberte, libertee, from Old French liberte, French liberté = Spanish libertad = Portuguese liberdade = Italian libertà, from Latin liberta(t-)s, Old Latin loeberta(t-)s, freedom, from liber, free: see liberal.

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