liberal arts
plural noun
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Why do we call the liberal arts "liberal"?
The liberal in liberal arts is not political. Its roots can be traced to the Latin word liber, meaning “free, unrestricted.” Our language took the term from the Latin liberales artes, which described the education given to members of the upper classes as well as to those with the full rights of a citizen; this education involved training in such subjects as grammar, logic, geometry, etc., as opposed to the education reserved for the lower classes, which involved mechanical or occupational skills. The phrase liberal arts has been part of our language for a very long time, with use dating back to the 14th century.
Examples of liberal arts in a Sentence
Hazlitt, 4 Sep. 2024
Is there really one culture that characterizes several thousand campuses—community colleges, liberal arts colleges, research universities, for-profit universities, and so on—or even just a significant swath of them?
—Adrian Daub / Made By History, TIME, 3 Sep. 2024
The new recruits include a lot of people who at one point would not have considered coming to a school like FIT but have done so due to how its schools of liberal arts, art and design and business and technology have been built up, Brown said.
—Rosemary Feitelberg, WWD, 19 Aug. 2024
Hillsdale College is a small, Christian liberal arts school in Michigan known both for its great books curriculum, which is centered on reading the classics of the Western canon, and for having been a feeder of staffers for the Trump administration.
—Andy Kroll, ProPublica, 10 Aug. 2024
See all Example Sentences for liberal arts 
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'liberal arts.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near liberal arts
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“Liberal arts.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/liberal%20arts. Accessed 19 Sep. 2024.
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