# liberty

Pronunciation: US say "LIB-ur-tee" /ˈlɪb.ɚ.ti/; UK/AUS say "LIB-uh-tee" /ˈlɪb.ɪ.ti/

## Noun

1. The state or condition of being free.
   - Simple: The state of being free rather than trapped or controlled.
   - _The exiles longed for the liberty they had known before the war._
   - _Philosophers have argued for centuries about what true liberty really means._
2. Freedom to decide how to act and what to believe, and to express oneself however one chooses.
   - Simple: Being free to do, believe, or say what you choose.
   - _The new law expanded the liberty of citizens to assemble and protest._
   - _Religious liberty allows people to follow any faith or none at all._
3. The state of not being in prison, enslaved, or forced to work against one's will.
   - Simple: Being free from prison, slavery, or forced work.
   - _After ten years behind bars, he finally regained his liberty._
   - _The abolitionists fought to secure liberty for those held in bondage._
4. Freedom from excessive control by the government.
   - Simple: Being free from too much control by the government.
   - _Critics warned that the emergency powers chipped away at individual liberty._
   - _The framers designed checks and balances to protect liberty from a powerful state._
5. An act that oversteps accepted social bounds or proper conduct.
   - Simple: An action that breaks the normal rules of polite behavior.
   - _Helping himself to the host's study struck the guests as a real liberty._
   - _She thought it a liberty that he answered her phone without permission._
6. A short period during which a sailor is permitted to go ashore.
   - Simple: Time when a sailor is allowed to leave the ship and go on land.
   - _After weeks at sea, the crew was granted liberty in Naples._
   - _Shore patrol rounded up the sailors whose liberty had ended at midnight._
7. A district forming a unit of local government administration in medieval England.
   - Simple: An area in old England that ran its own local government.
   - _The abbey controlled a liberty whose courts answered to the abbot rather than the crown._
   - _Several liberties bordered the city, each with distinct legal privileges._
8. In the game Go, an empty point directly adjacent to a group of stones of the same color.
   - Simple: An empty point right next to your own group of stones in the game Go.
   - _Surrounded on three sides, the white group clung to its final liberty._
   - _Each move reduced the enemy group's liberties one by one._

## Origin

It comes from Middle English liberte, from Old French liberté, from Latin libertas ("freedom"), which derives from liber ("free"): the same root as liberal.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/liberty (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).