liberalism

What it means

1. countableuncountableThe quality of being liberal.
2. countableuncountablegovernmentAny political movement founded on the autonomy and personal freedom of the individual, progress and reform, and government by law with the consent of the governed.

   Whether some distant cousin really belongs to the extended family of liberalisms is a matter of healthy dispute.

   2009 January 25, Timothy Garton Ash, “A Liberal Translation”, in The New York Times

   1 more example

   This poses obvious problems for statistical inference in that what may appear as ‘declines’ in non-white racial liberalism may actually be due to increases in representation of non-black racial/ethnic minorities whose racial attitudes are more conservative.

   2022 May 2, Zachary Goldberg, “Explaining Shifts in White Racial Liberalism: The Role of Collective Moral Emotions and Media Effects”, in Georgia State University, archived from the original on 25 Jan 2025, page 142

3. countableuncountableeconomicsAn economic ideology in favour of laissez faire and the free market (related to economic liberalism).

   But liberalism has no obvious answers to the biggest problems we face: ecological collapse and technological disruption.

   2018, Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

In a sentence

Whether some distant cousin really belongs to the extended family of liberalisms is a matter of healthy dispute.

2009 January 25, Timothy Garton Ash, “A Liberal Translation”, in The New York Times

Where it comes from

1. Frenchlibéralisme
2. Englishliberalism

Circa 1819, from French libéralisme circa 1818. Equivalent to liberal + -ism.