liberalismn.
/ˈlɪb(ə)rəlɪz(ə)m/, /ˈlɪb(ə)rl̩ɪz(ə)m/, U.S. /ˈlɪb(ə)rəˌlɪz(ə)m/ 1. Support for or advocacy of individual rights, civil liberties, and reform tending towards individual freedom, democracy, or social equality; a political and social philosophy based on these principles; spec. (frequently with capital initial) the doctrine or practice of the Liberal Party in Britain or elsewhere. See liberal adj. 5.market liberalism, neoliberalism: see the first element.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > rule or government > politics > party politics > groups or attitudes right to left > [noun] > the left > old left or liberal > attitudes of
liberalism1816
liberality1822
liberalness1861
1816 Morning Chron. 29 Jan. The King [of Spain]..condemned fifteen persons accused of the crime of liberalism..to hard labour, banishment, &c.
1819 Lady Morgan in Passages from Autobiogr. (1859) 17 He is worthy of a conversion to liberalism.
1837 T. Hook Jack Brag II. iii. 128 The liberalism of the King of the French.
1859 J. S. Mill On Liberty i. 11 This mode of thought..was common among the last generation of European liberalism.
1891 Pall Mall Gaz. 6 Apr. 2/1 Labour..should have nothing to do with either Liberalism or Toryism.
1918 C. G. Robertson Bismarck ii. 81 German Liberalism called for the abolition of the Bund and the Diet.
1960 20th Cent. Aug. 99 Old-fashioned, pre-Keynesian, laissez-faire liberalism.
1974 Maclean's Oct. 42/3 In the days and weeks after the election..polls of all parties were busy reanalyzing Liberalism's success.
1992 J. M. Kelly Short Hist. Western Legal Theory x. 392 The Western democracies, whose systems are all variants of liberalism, though a liberalism which had come to accept a large degree of redistributive social support.
2. Freedom from bias, prejudice, or bigotry; open-mindedess, tolerance; (Politics) liberal left-wing political views and policies. Cf. liberal adj. 4a.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > attention and judgement > judgement or decision > absence of prejudice > [noun]
franchisec1325
liberal-mindedness1625
unbiassednessa1656
unprejudicateness1660
unprejudicedness1664
unprejudice1721
liberality1783
enlargement1806
imprejudice1806
unpossessednessc1819
liberalism1820
open-mindedness1832
liberalness1861
1820 Atheneum: Spirit of Eng. Mags. 15 July 409/1 In spite of their liberalism, [they] revolt against their own doctrine; when it is to..seek alliance by marriage,..they look out for the purest and most illustrious blood they can find.
1899 J. M. Robertson Short Hist. Freethought x. 227 As against Dante, the great literary influence for tolerance and liberalism if not rationalism of thought was Boccaccio.
1925 Cent. Mag. Jan. 427/2 It is the function of liberalism to sting conservatism into an intelligent and tolerant attitude.
1972 Jet 12 Oct. 6/2 For interracial couples seeking a comfortable place to live,..it seems that New York City, which has long seen itself as a bastion of liberalism, is the place to do it.
1989 Blitz Jan. 20/1 Liberalism—it's like when some guy shoots forty people, but it's not his fault, it's just because he came from a deprived background.
2008 Time Out N.Y. 30 Oct. 123/2 [She] has made no secret of her fire-breathing liberalism for as long as the vast right-wing conspiracists have been trying to make that a swear word.
3. Chiefly U.S. The holding of liberal views in theology. See liberal adj. 4b.
ΘΚΠ
society > faith > aspects of faith > free thought > [noun]
private judgement1565
libertinism1575
libertism1652
libertinage1654
free-thinking?1700
free-thought1711
liberalism1823
1823 Christian Observer Oct. 656/1 This sort of sceptical liberalism seems to be much upon the advance in India.
1841 J. H. Newman in Apol. 313 The more serious thinkers among us are used..to regard the spirit of Liberalism as the characteristic of the destined Antichrist.
1881 Sat. Rev. 23 July 101/1 The ecclesiastical Liberalism which shaped the Dean's peculiar view.
1908 Unitarian Apr. 115/1 The liberalism of all of our Unitarian churches to-day.
1965 Life 7 May 111/3 Barth countered the rationalist-tinged Protestant liberalism of the time by defending the Bible as the Divine Word.
2001 W. R. Glass Strangers in Zion i. 10 The rise of theological liberalism was the most important development for sparking the emergence of fundamentalism.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, November 2010; most recently modified version published online June 2022).
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n.1816