CONSERVATIVE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Conservative

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/kənsˈərvətɪv/ Listen

adjective

Conservative adj.

1.

Having power to preserve in a safe of entire state, or from loss, waste, or injury; preservative.

2.

Tending or disposed to maintain existing institutions; opposed to change or innovation.

3.

Of or pertaining to a political party which favors the conservation of existing institutions and forms of government, as the Conservative party in England; contradistinguished from Liberal and Radical. "We have always been conscientiously attached to what is called the Tory, and which might with more propriety be called the Conservative, party."

Conservative system (Mech.), a material system of such a nature that after the system has undergone any series of changes, and been brought back in any manner to its original state, the whole work done by external agents on the system is equal to the whole work done by the system overcoming external forces.

noun

Conservative n.

1.

One who, or that which, preserves from ruin, injury, innovation, or radical change; a preserver; a conserver. "The Holy Spirit is the great conservative of the new life."

2.

One who desires to maintain existing institutions and customs; also, one who holds moderate opinions in politics; opposed to revolutionary or radical.

3.

(Eng. Hist.) A member of the Conservative party.

See images of 'Conservative'

Etymology of 'Conservative'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Conservative" Quotes from Famous Books

... time past endeavouring to find a Candidate for this Borough, and should be glad to hear if we may submit your name to the consideration of our local Council. The political history of Billsbury must be known to you. Up to the date of the last election we have always been represented by a Conservative. In fact, Billsbury was always looked upon as an impregnable ...

— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 4, 1891 • Various

... thought of by His worshippers as being mainly the God of the sacristy, a kind of "supreme Guardian of the clerical interest in Europe." Least of all is GOD the commonplace deity of commonplace people, a sort of placid personification of respectability, the GOD whose religion is the religion of "the Conservative Party at prayer." ...

— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson

... I find myself again this year. "Scenes of my bath-hood, once more I behold ye!" There is "A Salubrity at Royat," which people of certain tendencies cannot easily find elsewhere. It is a cure for eminent persons of strong Conservative tendencies. Lord SALISBURY was here last year, and my friend Monsieur ONDIT, who is in everybody's confidence, tells me that his Lordship will revisit a place where the traitement did him so much good. I believe ...

— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 93, August 13, 1887 • Various

... all Englishmen were content with the settlement. No sooner were the people in control of the government than they divided into hostile parties: the liberal Whigs, who were determined to safeguard popular liberty, and the conservative Tories, with tender memories of kingcraft, who would leave as much authority as possible in the royal hands. On the extreme of Toryism was a third party of zealots, called the Jacobites, who aimed to bring the Stuarts back to the throne, and who for fifty years filled Britain with plots and ...

— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... sentiments in giving or receiving; if you write at all, write a plain, brief, dignified note which you can read five years after with perfect satisfaction. Notes are often misunderstood, sometimes we don't exactly understand ourselves when we write them, and so it is always safer to be on the conservative side. It will often save a good deal of vain regret and many wishes to goodness that you had taken ...

— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley

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