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Civil liberty   /sˈɪvəl lˈɪbərti/   Listen
noun
Liberty  n.  (pl. liberties)  
1.
The state of a free person; exemption from subjection to the will of another claiming ownership of the person or services; freedom; opposed to slavery, serfdom, bondage, or subjection. "But ye... caused every man his servant, and every man his handmaid whom he had set at liberty at their pleasure, to return, and brought them into subjection." "Delivered fro the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God."
2.
Freedom from imprisonment, bonds, or other restraint upon locomotion. "Being pent from liberty, as I am now."
3.
A privilege conferred by a superior power; permission granted; leave; as, liberty given to a child to play, or to a witness to leave a court, and the like.
4.
Privilege; exemption; franchise; immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant; as, the liberties of the commercial cities of Europe. "His majesty gave not an entire county to any; much less did he grant... any extraordinary liberties."
5.
The place within which certain immunities are enjoyed, or jurisdiction is exercised. (Eng.) "Brought forth into some public or open place within the liberty of the city, and there... burned."
6.
A certain amount of freedom; permission to go freely within certain limits; also, the place or limits within which such freedom is exercised; as, the liberties of a prison.
7.
A privilege or license in violation of the laws of etiquette or propriety; as, to permit, or take, a liberty. "He was repeatedly provoked into striking those who had taken liberties with him."
8.
The power of choice; freedom from necessity; freedom from compulsion or constraint in willing. "The idea of liberty is the idea of a power in any agent to do or forbear any particular action, according to the determination or thought of the mind, whereby either of them is preferred to the other." "This liberty of judgment did not of necessity lead to lawlessness."
9.
(Manege) A curve or arch in a bit to afford room for the tongue of the horse.
10.
(Naut.) Leave of absence; permission to go on shore.
At liberty.
(a)
Unconfined; free.
(b)
At leisure.
Civil liberty, exemption from arbitrary interference with person, opinion, or property, on the part of the government under which one lives, and freedom to take part in modifying that government or its laws.
Liberty bell. See under Bell.
Liberty cap.
(a)
The Roman pileus which was given to a slave at his manumission.
(b)
A limp, close-fitting cap with which the head of representations of the goddess of liberty is often decked. It is sometimes represented on a spear or a liberty pole.
Liberty of the press, freedom to print and publish without official supervision.
Liberty party, the party, in the American Revolution, which favored independence of England; in more recent usage, a party which favored the emancipation of the slaves.
Liberty pole, a tall flagstaff planted in the ground, often surmounted by a liberty cap. (U. S.)
Moral liberty, that liberty of choice which is essential to moral responsibility.
Religious liberty, freedom of religious opinion and worship.
Synonyms: Leave; permission; license. Liberty, Freedom. These words, though often interchanged, are distinct in some of their applications. Liberty has reference to previous restraint; freedom, to the simple, unrepressed exercise of our powers. A slave is set at liberty; his master had always been in a state of freedom. A prisoner under trial may ask liberty (exemption from restraint) to speak his sentiments with freedom (the spontaneous and bold utterance of his feelings). The liberty of the press is our great security for freedom of thought.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Civil liberty" Quotes from Famous Books



... strength of Holland was derived from the ocean, from whose destructive grasp she had wrested herself, but in whose friendly embrace she remained. She was already placing securely the foundations of commercial wealth and civil liberty upon those shifting quicksands which the Roman doubted whether to call land or water. Her submerged deformity, as she floated, mermaid-like, upon the waves was to be forgotten in her material splendor. Enriched ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... more natural than the transition from civil liberty to religious freedom. Individuals, as well as communities, who, favored by a happy political constitution, have become acquainted with the rights of man, and accustomed to examine, if not also to create, the law which is to govern them; whose minds have been enlightened ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... philosophical Deism. The reduced state of piety was largely due to the oppression suffered at the hand of the state. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which deprived Protestants of both religious and civil liberty, occurred in October, 1685, and it was not until 1808 that the law of the 18th Germinal once more recognized their rights, and placed Catholicism and Protestantism on an equal basis. The whole interval was marked by a stagnation of fearful character. At the time of the Revocation, ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... the warm southern blood of her mother which was Mary Stuart's ruin. She was a Guise,—and so was her son James I.—and so was Charles I., her grandson. There was despotism and tyranny in their blood. Their very natures made it impossible that they should comprehend the Anglo- Saxon ideal of civil liberty. ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... stronger terms than the mild-tempered Madison often indulged in. But he felt strongly. Probably he, no more than many other wiser and older men, understood what was to be the end of the political struggle which was getting so earnest; but evidently in his mind it was religious rather than civil liberty which was to be guarded. "If the Church of England," he says in the same letter, "had been the established and general religion in all the Northern colonies, as it has been among us here, and uninterrupted harmony had prevailed throughout the continent, ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... extent as to the final application of their borrowed advantages. Napoleon applied them to purposes the very opposite of those which had originally given them birth. Nothing less than patriotic ardor in defence of what had at one time appeared to be the cause of civil liberty, could have availed to evoke those mighty hosts which gathered in the early years of the Revolution on the German and Italian frontiers of France. Yet were these hosts applied, under the perfect despotism of Napoleon, to the final extinction of liberty; and the armies of Jacobinism, who had gone ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... amnesty was also passed, which was of some advantage. On the whole, both for the constitutional principles which they upheld, and the religious proscription which they resisted, the recusant minority in the Irish Parliament of James I. deserve to be held in honour by all who value religious and civil liberty. ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... their local circumstances would admit. These ministers adopted this mode of religious worship, not only from a persuasion of its conformity to the primitive Apostolic form, but also from a conviction of its being, of all others, the most favourable to civil liberty, equality, and independence. Sensible that not only natural endowments, but also a competent measure of learning and acquired knowledge were necessary to qualify men for the sacred function, and enable them to discharge the duties of it with honour and success, they associated on purpose to prevent ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... polarity at the other, so Southern feeling in favor of slavery was thereby increased. Up to a recent period Southern leaders had, as a rule, deprecated slavery, and hoped for its abolition; now they as generally advocated it as good in itself;—the main foundation of civil liberty; the normal condition of the working classes of every nation; and some of them urged the revival of the African slave-trade. The struggle became more and more bitter. I was during that time at Yale, and the general ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White


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