Liberation

How to spell liberation

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce liberation

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does liberation mean?

1. nounThe act of setting someone or something free from confinement, oppression, or control.

Liberation in a sentence

• The museum exhibit marks the liberation of the city in 1944.

• The charity campaigns for the liberation of political prisoners.

Where does liberation come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin liberare, meaning 'to set free', which was built directly on the adjective liber, meaning 'free' (as opposed to a slave). The related noun liberatio described the act of releasing someone from a debt, a duty, or captivity. English took the word in by way of Old French, where liberacion carried the sense of setting prisoners at liberty, and it settled into English in the late medieval period. The same liber root sits inside a whole family of familiar words: 'liberty', 'liberal', 'liberate', and even 'deliver', so the central spelling clue is to picture the free 'liber' core before adding the busy '-ation' ending. The strongly political modern flavour, freeing a people or a country, grew in the twentieth century, especially after the military liberations of the World Wars.

How the word is built

• liber- (free)
• -ation (noun of action)