Liberties

How to spell liberties

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce liberties

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does liberties mean?

1. nounFreedoms, rights, or privileges that people are entitled to enjoy.
2. nounInstances of behaving too freely or presumptuously, beyond what is permitted or proper.

Liberties in a sentence

• The new law was criticised for eroding civil liberties.

• The editor took considerable liberties with the original manuscript.

• Campaigners argued that the surveillance powers threatened personal liberties.

• The film takes a few liberties with the historical facts.

Where does liberties come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin libertas, meaning 'freedom' or 'the condition of a free person', which was built directly on the adjective liber, 'free'. The same liber root gives English a whole family of relatives, including 'liberal', 'liberate', and even 'libertine'. English took the word through Old French liberte during the 1300s, when it referred chiefly to release from bondage or servitude. Over the following centuries the meaning broadened to cover political and legal freedoms, the rights a citizen enjoys against the state. A separate informal branch, the idea of 'taking liberties', grew from the sense of acting with more freedom than one is actually entitled to. The single 'b' followed by the 'er' that sounds like a soft schwa is the usual spelling trap, since the Latin liber had just one b all along.

How the word is built

• liber- (from Latin liber: free)
• -ty (noun-forming suffix denoting a state or quality)
• -ies (plural)