[lib-er-tee] 
| 1. | freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control. |
| 2. | freedom from external or foreign rule; independence. |
| 3. | freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice. |
| 4. | freedom from captivity, confinement, or physical restraint: The prisoner soon regained his liberty. |
| 5. | permission granted to a sailor, esp. in the navy, to go ashore. |
| 6. | freedom or right to frequent or use a place: The visitors were given the liberty of the city. |
| 7. | unwarranted or impertinent freedom in action or speech, or a form or instance of it: to take liberties. |
| 8. | a female figure personifying freedom from despotism. |
| 9. | at liberty,
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[lib-er-tee] | a town in W Missouri. 16,251. |
| lib·er·ty (lĭb'ər-tē) n. pl. lib·er·ties
[Middle English liberte, from Old French, from Latin lībertās, from līber, free; see leudh- in Indo-European roots.] |
"The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right." [Learned Hand, 1944]Nautical sense of "leave of absence" is from 1758. To take liberties "go beyond the bounds of propriety" is from 1625. Sense of "privileges" led to sense of "a person's private land" (1455), which yielded sense in 18c. England and America of "a district within a county but having its own justice of the peace," and also "a district adjacent to a city but under its municipal jurisdiction" (e.g. Northern Liberties of Philadelphia).
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