- a person who understands and respects other people’s opinions and behaviour, especially when they are different from their own
- He liked to think of himself as a liberal.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective- leading
- bourgeois
- middle-class
- …
- a person who supports political, social or religious change and the more equal sharing of wealth
- a left-leaning/secular liberal
- She is an outspoken liberal and supporter of workers' rights.
- Liberals wasted no time in celebrating the right-winger's defeat.
- His opponents portray him as a tax-and-spend liberal.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective- leading
- bourgeois
- middle-class
- …
- a person who supports individual freedom and rights, democracy and free enterprise (= businesses competing against each other with little government control)
- As a liberal, I treasure individual freedom.
- The liberals want to leave it to the market to decide.
- Liberal(politics) a member of the British Liberal Party in the past, or of a Liberal Party in another country
somebody who respects others
politics
Word OriginMiddle English: via Old French from Latin liberalis, from liber ‘free (man)’. The original sense was ‘suitable for a free man’, hence ‘suitable for a gentleman’ (one not tied to a trade), surviving in liberal arts. Another early sense ‘generous’ (compare with sense (4)) gave rise to an obsolete meaning ‘free from restraint’, leading to sense (1) (late 18th cent.).
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liberal