| 释义 |
liberal, a. and n.|ˈlɪbərəl|
Forms: 4–5 liberale, (5 libral), 4–7 liberall(e, 5–6 lyberal(l, 4– liberal.
[a. OF. liberal (F. libéral) = Sp., Pg. liberal, It. liberale, ad. L. līberālis pertaining to a free man, f. līber free.]
A. adj.
1. Originally, the distinctive epithet of those ‘arts’ or ‘sciences’ (see art 7) that were considered ‘worthy of a free man’; opposed to servile or mechanical. In later use, of condition, pursuits, occupations: Pertaining to or suitable to persons of superior social station; ‘becoming a gentleman’ (J.). Now rare, exc. of education, culture, etc., with mixture of senses 3 and 4: Directed to general intellectual enlargement and refinement; not narrowly restricted to the requirements of technical or professional training. Freq. in liberal arts.
c1375Sc. Leg. Saints xxiv. (Alexis) 111 Þai set hyme ayrly to þe schule, artis liberalis for-thy þat he suld cone. 1422tr. Secreta Secret., Priv. Priv. 144 Libral Sciencis, that is to Say fre scyencis, as gramer, arte, fisike, astronomye, and otheris. 1509Hawes Past. Pleas. xvi. (Percy Soc.) 62 Physyke can not be lyberall As the vii. science by good auctorite. 1557,1579[see art 7]. 1589Greene Menaphon (Arb.) 61 It behooued her to further his Destinies with some good and liberall education. 1638F. Junius Paint. Ancients 232 None among all other liberall arts do require..so great helps. a1661Fuller Worthies (1840) III. 209 He made any liberal employment beseem him; reading, writing [etc.]. 1680Evelyn Diary 18 Apr., A painting by Verrio, of Apollo and the Liberal Arts. 1741Middleton Cicero I. i. 7 Agriculture was held the most liberal employment in old Rome. 1749Chesterfield Lett. (1792) II. cciii. 272 If you have not..liberal and engaging manners..you will be nobody. 1753W. Shipley in D. G. C. Allan William Shipley (1968) 229 (title) Proposals for raising by subscription a fund to be distributed in premiums for the promoting of improvements in the Liberal Arts and Sciences, Manufactures, etc. 1757Burke Abridgm. Eng. Hist. ii. i. Wks. (1812) 256 They are permitted..to emerge out of that low rank into a more liberal condition. 1776Adam Smith W.N. v. ii. II. 478 The ingenious arts and the liberal professions. 1801Strutt Sports & Past. i. iii. 40 Two centuries back horse-racing was considered as a liberal pastime, practised for pleasure rather than profit. 1818Hallam Mid. Ages (1872) I. 342 Rarely met with except in persons of good birth and liberal habits. 1845Stephen Comm. Laws Eng. (1874) I. 1 Men of liberal eduction and respectable rank. 1849Macaulay Hist. Eng. vi. II. 55 They wandered to countries which neither mercantile avidity nor liberal curiosity had ever impelled any stranger to explore. 1868M. Pattison Academ. Org. v. 192 The distinction..will always remain as fundamental between the liberal and professional. 1875Jowett Plato (ed. 2) IV. 335 The free use of words and phrases..is generally characteristic of a liberal education. 1906P. Abelson (title) The seven liberal arts, a study in mediæval culture. 1950E. H. Gombrich Story of Art xv. 215 The so-called Liberal Arts such as rhetorics, grammar, philosophy and dialectic. 1951[see clinic n.2 3]. 1961New Scientist 16 Mar. 662/1 The better public schools..should be converted to liberal-arts colleges on the American pattern. 1965Listener 11 Mar. 387/2 (Advt.), The major part of the work will be teaching Sociology,..but appropriately qualified candidates will be expected to teach Liberal studies. 1973Jrnl. Genetic Psychol. CXXII. 183 The educational problems of the troubled liberal arts college student.
2. a. Free in bestowing; bountiful, generous, open-hearted. Const. of.
1387Trevisa Higden (Rolls) VII. 119 In fiȝtinge he was strong, in giffynge liberal. 1426Lydg. De Guil. Pilgr. 22438 They seyne eke they be lyberal, Though they be streyte and ravynous. c1430ABC of Aristotle in Babees Bk. 12, L to looth for to leene, ne to liberal of goodis. 1513More in Hall Chron., Edw. V (1548) j b, Somwhat aboue his power liberall. 1520Caxton's Chron. Eng. iv. 31 b/2 He was full lyberall to all men. 1535Coverdale Ecclus. xxxi. 23 Who so is liberall in dealynge out his meate, many men shall blesse him. 1596Shakes. Merch. V. iv. i. 438, I see sir you are liberall in offers. a1625Fletcher Love's Pilgr. iii. iii, As you are a gentleman, be liberal. 1659Hammond On Ps. lxvi. 15 Paraphr. 324 This I will now doe in the liberallest and most magnificent manner. 1785Cowper Task iv. 413 Knaves in office..liberal of their aid To clamorous importunity in rags. 1860Dickens Uncomm. Trav. xi, The bearers..are persons to whom you cannot be too liberal. 1863Cowden Clarke Shaks. Char. v. 124 With Cassio he is patronising, and liberal of his advice. 1886Ruskin Præterita I. vi. 184 Wisely liberal of his money for comfort and pleasure.
absol.1611Bible Isa. xxxii. 8 The liberall deuiseth liberall things. 1692Locke Educ. §105 Let them find by experience, that the most liberal has always most plenty.
b. Of a gift, offer, etc.: Made without stint. Of a meal, an entertainment, etc., also of a fortune: Abundant, ample.
1433Rolls of Parlt. IV. 425/1 Of the whiche his liberall offre ye said Lords þankid hym. 1513More in Hall Chron., Edw. V (1548) iij b, Wyth ouer liberall and wanton diet, he waxed somewhat corpulent & bourly. 1535Coverdale Ps. xx[i]. 3 Thou hast preuented him with liberall blessinges. 1602Life T. Cromwell iii. i. 97 Therefore, kind sir, thanks for your liberal gift. 1607Topsell Four-f. Beasts (1658) 360 The lion, having been lately filled with some liberal prey, did not presently fall to eat him. 1672–5T. Comber Comp. Temple (1702) 332 Some of our liberalest foundations..are of their Erection. 1689Burnet Tracts I. 19 To correct the moisture of the Air with liberal entertainments. 1828Scott F.M. Perth xxxiv, ‘A liberal offer’..said the Host of the Griffin. 1843R. S. Candlish in Jean L. Watson Life viii. (1882) 88 My cordial thanks for the liberal provision you have made for me. 1853Kane Grinnell Exp. xxxvi. (1856) 327 The men drank it [beer] in most liberal quantities.
c. Hence occas. of outline, parts of the body, etc.: Ample, large.
1616B. Jonson Devil an Ass i. iii. (1631) 109 Against this husband; Who, if we chance to change his liberall eares To other ensignes, and with labour make A new beast of him. 1798Landor Gebir i. 204 More of pleasure than disdain Was in her dimpled chin and liberal lip. 1897Allbutt's Syst. Med. IV. 381, I think I have observed that women of slender frame more often contract renal disease under pregnancy than those of more liberal outline.
3.
†a. Free from restraint; free in speech or action. In 16–17th c. often in a bad sense: Unrestrained by prudence or decorum, licentious. liberal arbitre (= F. libéral arbitre, L. liberum arbitrium): free will. Obs.
1490Caxton Eneydos xii. 44 Wyll thou commytte & vndresitte thy lyberal arbytre to thynges Impossyble. 1526Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 131 And where there is a quicke wytte & a liberall tong, there is moche speche. c1594Kyd Sp. Trag. (1620) I 4 It lyes not in Lorenzos power To stop the vulgar liberall of their tongues. 1599Shakes. Much Ado iv. i. 93 A ruffian Who hath indeed most like a liberall villaine, Confest the vile encounters they have had. 1604― Oth. ii. i. 165 Is he not a most prophane, and liberall Counsailor? 1608Middleton Fam. Love v. ii, I stand The theme and comment to each liberal tongue. 1613Beaum. & Fl. Captain ii. ii, And give allowance to your liberall jests Upon his person. 1670Cotton Espernon iii. ix. 469, I shall not..attempt to pass so liberal a judgment upon a person I am, for so many respects, oblig'd to honour. 1689Wood Life 31 Aug., Mr. Henry Dodwell..liberal in his discourse at London, so much that a gent. threatened to bring him into danger. 1709Steele Tatler No. 79 ⁋4 The Old Devil at Temple-Bar,..where Ben. Johnson and his Sons used to make their liberal Meetings.
b. Of passage, etc.: Freely permitted, not interfered with. Obs. exc. arch.
1530–1Act 22 Hen. VIII, c. 14 His lyberall and free habytations resortes and passages to and fro the vniuersall places of this realme. 1532Act 23 Hen. VIII, c. 18 Ships should haue their liberall and direct passage in the mids of the streames of the said riuer of Ouse and water of Humber. 1871R. Ellis tr. Catullus lxviii. 69 He in a closed field gave scope of liberal entry.
c. Of construction or interpretation: Inclining to laxity or indulgence; not rigorous. † Also of a translation: Free, not literal.
1778Jefferson Autobiog. Wks. 1859 I. 146, I have added Latin, or liberal English translations. 1792A. Hamilton Let. to E. Carrington Wks. (ed. Lodge) VIII. 264 A disposition on my part towards a liberal construction of the powers of the national government. 1818Cruise Digest (ed. 2) III. 407 The learned Commentator..put a much more liberal construction on the dictum in the Year Book.
†d. With agent-noun: That does something freely or copiously. Obs.
1668Culpepper & Cole Barthol. Anat. ii. i. 87 So much..as may suffice a Child that is a liberal Sucker.
4. a. Free from narrow prejudice; open-minded, candid.
1781Gibbon Decl. & F. xxx. III. 142 A Grecian philosopher, who visited Constantinople soon after the death of Theodosius, published his liberal opinions concerning the duties of kings. 1803Med. Jrnl. IX. 444 A liberal investigation of the curative power of topical cold to arthritic inflammation. 1817J. Evans Excurs. Windsor etc. 20 The late Dr. Watson..published a liberal reply to the Historian in his Apology for Christianity. 1818Jas. Mill Brit. India II. v. viii. 684 Liberal enquiries into the literature and institutions of the Hindus. 1849Macaulay Hist. Eng. iv. I. 467 The resentment which Innocent felt towards France, disposed him to take a mild and liberal view of the affairs of England.
b. esp. Free from bigotry or unreasonable prejudice in favour of traditional opinions or established institutions; open to the reception of new ideas or proposals of reform.
Hence often applied as a party designation to those members of a church or religious sect who hold opinions ‘broader’ or more ‘advanced’ than those in accordance with its commonly accepted standard of orthodoxy, e.g. in Liberal Catholic. Liberal Christian: in the U.S. chiefly applied to the Unitarians and Universalists; in England somewhat more vaguely to those who reject or consider unessential any considerable part of the traditional system of belief; so liberal Christianity, liberal theology. Also in application to Judaism.
1823(title) The liberal Christian. 1828(title) Which society shall you join, liberal or orthodox? 1846O. W. Holmes A Rhymed Lesson 308 Thine eyes behold A cheerful Christian from the liberal fold. 1862Dublin Rev. Nov. 48 Our friends the ‘liberal’ Catholics may be interested in a note to F. Faber's treatise. 1876O. B. Frothingham Transcendentalism New Eng. vi. 128 It may be inferred that Transcendentalism in New England was a movement within the limits of ‘liberal’ Christianity or Unitarianism as it was called. 1886W. P. Roberts Liberalism in Religion 56, I maintain that Liberal Protestantism, Liberal Christianity, is not anti-dogmatic, is not anti-theological. Ibid. 59 Now I am positively for dogma, and so I am sure is every Liberal Christian. 1886W. Barry in Fortn. Rev. Feb. 185 It would still appear to me..that the Liberal Protestantism of the day is a makeshift. 1900Jewish Q. Rev. July 618 (heading) Liberal Judaism in England. Ibid., These liberal Jews have no organization. 1920R. Macaulay Potterism vi. v. 253 Modernist liberal-catholic vicars asked him to preach. 1957Oxf. Dict. Chr. Ch. 807/1 The ‘Liberal Catholics’ who formed a distinguished group in the RC Church in the 19th cent. were for the most part theologically orthodox, but they favoured political democracy and ecclesiastical reform... ‘Liberal Protestantism’..developed into an anti-dogmatic and humanitarian reconstruction of the Christian faith. 1965Sunday Times 5 Feb. 5/3 A plan for a national conference of non-orthodox synagogues, Reform (progressive) and Liberal. 1968B. M. G. Reardon (title) Liberal Protestantism. 1974Times Lit. Suppl. 19 Apr. 424/4 Judaism is divided into Orthodox, Conservative and Reform varieties following the American terminology, and not into the British Orthodox, Reform and Liberal camps.
5. Of political opinions: Favourable to constitutional changes and legal or administrative reforms tending in the direction of freedom or democracy. Hence used as the designation of the party holding such opinions, in England or other states; opposed to Conservative. Liberal-Labour, of or pertaining to (persons associated with or sympathetic to) both the Liberal and the Labour parties. So Liberal Labourism. Cf. Lib-Lab a.
In Liberal Conservative, the adj. has rather sense 4 than this sense; the combination, however, is often hyphened, which perhaps indicates that it is interpreted as = ‘partly Liberal, partly Conservative.’ Liberal Unionist: a member of the party formed by those Liberals who refused to support Mr. Gladstone's measure of Irish Home Rule in 1886.
1801Hel. M. Williams Sk. Fr. Rep. I. xi. 113 The extinction of every vestige of freedom, and of every liberal idea with which they are associated. 1842Cobden Speech in Morley Life x. (1882) 34/2, I believe the right hon. Baronet [Peel] to be as liberal as the noble Lord [J. Russell]. 1847Ld. Cockburn Jrnl. II. 191, I have scarcely been able to detect any Candidate's address which, if professing Conservatism, does not explain that this means ‘Liberal Conservatism’. 1866Geo. Eliot F. Holt (1868) 29 Harold meant to stand on the Liberal side. 1879G. B. Smith Life Gladstone I. i. 9 Principles..which we usually associate with the name of Liberal-Conservative. 1881M. E. Herbert Edith 190 The Liberal Government had outlived its popularity. 1899Ld. Rosebery in Westm. Gaz. 31 Oct. 2/2 There is no such party known..to the Speaker or the Whips, as the party of the Liberal Imperialists. 1901Scotsman 12 Mar. 6/2 Liberal Unionism is still a vital force in British politics. 1909Daily Chron. 14 July 1/7 Mr. Hancock, the Liberal-Labour candidate for Mid-Derbyshire. 1929M. Beer Hist. Brit. Socialism (new ed.) II. iv. xvi. 315 In 1898 Gladstone died, and with him one of the main pillars of Liberal Labourism disappeared from British politics.
6. Comb. as liberal-anarchic, liberal-bourgeois, liberal-cultural, liberal-democratic, liberal-empiricist, liberal-hearted, liberal-humanist, liberal-minded, liberal-scientific, † liberal-talking adjs.; liberal-anarchism, liberal-mindedness.
1964New Society 13 Feb. 17/2 The progressive schools have been liberal-anarchic, the product of free enterprise in unorthodox educational ideas. Ibid., Liberal-anarchism will no longer do.
1951Koestler Age of Longing vi. 103 Where did you pick up this idea out of the liberal-bourgeois philosophy of law? 1953A. K. C. Ottaway Educ. & Soc. v. 88 The supporter of the pure liberal-cultural tradition.
1940Liberal-democratic [see culture n. 5 a].
1949Mind LVIII. 254 More than anyone, except perhaps Bertrand Russell, he [sc. L. T. Hobhouse] may be regarded as the inheritor of the liberal-empiricist mantle of John Stuart Mill.
1597Hooker Eccl. Pol. v. lxv. §20 The liberall harted man is by the opinion of the prodigall miserable.
1957N. Frye Anat. Crit. 6 It would be easy to compile a long list of such determinisms in criticism, all of them, whether Marxist..liberal-humanist..or existentialist, substituting a critical attitude for criticism.
1756Johnson in Boswell Johnson, The booksellers are generous Liberal⁓minded men. 1818Shelley Rev. Islam Pref., Can he who the day before was a trampled slave suddenly become liberal-minded? 1850Tennyson In Mem. Concl. 38 Thou art..liberal-minded, great, Consistent. 1925Beerbohm Observations 16 Too proud to fight?..or too liberal-minded?—or what? 1961New Eng. Bible Acts xvii. 11 The Jews here were more liberal-minded than those at Thessalonika. 1971‘D. Halliday’ Dolly & Doctor Bird v. 71 Mini Adult Show for the Liberal Minded.
1783Gentl. Mag. LIII. ii. 938 What the liberal-mindedness of the present age amounts to [etc.]. 1874Spurgeon Treas. Dav. Ps. lxxxix. 43 Indifference to all truth, under the name of liberal-mindedness, is the crowning virtue of the age.
1958Times Lit. Suppl. 17 Jan. 26/4 The obvious charge which can be brought against this picture of a suppressed liberal-scientific element is the undeniable fact that it never showed any signs of formulating a practical alternative to current political or ethical machinery.
1612N. Field Woman a Weathercock iii. i. F 1 b, Next to that, the fame, Of your neglect, and liberall talking tongue, Which bred my honour an eternall wrong.
B. n.
1. A member of the Liberal party (see A. 5).
a. in continental politics.
1820Edin. Rev. XXXIV. 3 Our travellers..continue to resort to Paris..and occasionally take part with Ultras or with Liberals. 1823Southey in Q. Rev. XXVIII. 496 The Liberals of that day [end of 18th c.].. flew at high game... There was a scheme for establishing a society of Liberals at Cleves, where..they were to employ themselves in the task of destroying Christianity by means of the press. 1848W. K. Kelly tr. L. Blanc's Hist. Ten Y. I. 52 The part played by the liberals during this time was as follows. 1885Lowe Prince Bismarck I. 469 This was evidently the calculation of the Liberals in the Reichstag, when..they began a series of attempts to cobble at the Constitution.
b. in British politics.
Early in the 19th c. the n. occurs chiefly as applied by opponents to the advanced section of the Whig party: sometimes in Sp. or Fr. form, app. with the intention of suggesting that the principles of those politicians were un-English, or akin to those of the revolutionaries of the Continent. As, however, the adj. was already English in a laudatory sense, the advocates of reform were not reluctant to adopt the foreign term as descriptive of themselves; and when the significance of the old party distinctions was obliterated by the coalition of the moderate Whigs with the Tories and of the advanced Whigs with the Radicals, the new names ‘Liberal’ and ‘Conservative’ took the place of ‘Whig’ and ‘Tory’ as the usual appellations of the two great parties in the state.
[1816Southey in Q. Rev. XV. 69 These are the personages for whose sake the continuance of the Alien Bill has been opposed by the British Liberales. 1826Scott Jrnl. 19 Nov., Canning, Huskisson, and a mitigated party of Liberaux. 1834M. Edgeworth Helen xxxv. III. 66 That one born and bred such an ultra exclusive..should be obliged after her marriage..to open her doors and turn ultra liberale, or an universal suffragist.] 1822(title) The Liberal. Verse and Prose from the South. 1828Blackw. Mag. XXIII. 174 What lurking conspirator against the quiet of his native government..has failed to ask and receive the protection of our Liberals? 1850L. Hunt Autobiog. II. xi. 77 Newer and more thorough-going Whigs..were known by the name of Radicals, and have since been called..Liberals. 1865J. S. Mill in Morn. Star 6 July, A Liberal is he who looks forward for his principles of government; a Tory looks backward. 1879McCarthy Own Times II. xix. 51 A large number of Liberals were no doubt influenced by this view of the situation.
c. In extra-European politics, and in wider application.
1832Liberal (St. Thomas, Ontario) 20 Sept. 3/4 We shall first notice the slanderous imputations cast upon the Liberals, that they are a discontented set of men, ever on the watch to find occasion for complaint and clamour. 1854N.Y. Tribune 22 Apr. 5/5 The ‘Liberals’ of Maine have called a ‘State Democratic Mass Convention’ at Portland. 1918H. V. Evatt Liberalism Austral. x. 66 The Sydney press claimed that its own free traders were the Liberals. 1940N.Y. Times 23 Jan. 20/4 Since then [sc. the Russian Revolution] Liberal has been a word of confusion. Everybody who was not a Conservative became a Liberal or Radical or Red, whichever came first to the mind. 1955D. Viklund tr. Tingsten Probl. S. Afr. x. 116 A Communist in South Africa is often, according to the general usage of the word, a liberal. 1957New Yorker 12 Jan. 25/1 Both she and Robbie were campus liberals; they had met at a gathering that had something to do with the Spanish war. a1964H. Hoover in W. Safire New Lang. Politics (1968) 232/2 Fuzzy minded totalitarian liberals who believe that their creeping collectivism can be adopted without destroying personal liberty and representative government. 1969New Yorker 14 June 44/2, I don't think he is a liberal. He's tight with his money, and he wants to see the poor work for their money.
2. One who holds ‘liberal’ views in theology. Chiefly U.S.
1887Beacon (Boston U.S.) 8 Jan., In Boston a minister is called a liberal when he rejects the Andover creed, and, perhaps, the Apostles' Creed.
▸ Liberal Democrat n. (in pl.) (the name of) any of a number of a political parties espousing liberal and democratic principles; (in sing.) a member of such a party; spec. (a member of) a British political party formed from the Liberal Party and members of the Social Democratic Party (founded in 1988 under the name ‘Social and Liberal Democrats’ and renamed ‘Liberal Democrats’ in 1989).
1868Times 9 June 5/1 The *Liberal Democrats have not..been accused by any one. 1904New Era (N.Y.) July 215/1 Dr. Blumenthal, Liberal Democrat, has been re-elected deputy for the rural division of Strassburg. 1977Guardian Weekly 27 Feb. 8/3 The Venstre Party or Liberal Democrats, have lost half their parliamentary representation and are now in Denmark's political wilderness. 1987Times (Nexis) 18 June A pact between Liberal-Democrats, led by Dr Owen, and a Labour Party led by, say, Mr John Smith. 1988Sunday Times 5 June b3/6 Are they to be called Democrats, as Paddy Ashdown, with an eye to the former SDP constituency, seems to accept—or Liberal Democrats, the term preferred by Alan Beith? 1989Times 16 Oct. 5/4 Mr Paddy Ashdown..is expected to announce this morning that the third force in British politics will be known as the Liberal Democrats. 1992E. Pearce Election Rides iv. 33 A Liberal Democrat who now holds Eastbourne. 2004Daily Tel. 15 June 8/7 The Liberal Democrats did reasonably well, faring in the Euros much as they did in the locals. |