Word.ws English Dictionary

classical liberalism

classical liberalism noun: a political ideology and a branch of liberalism that advocates civil liberties under the rule of law with an emphasis on economic freedom.

Noun

classical liberalism (uncountable)

  1. A political ideology and a branch of liberalism that advocates civil liberties under the rule of law with an emphasis on economic freedom.
    • It was during this period of industrialization that the individualistic world view of classical liberalism became the dominant ideology of capitalism.1990, E. K. Hunt, Property and Prophets, 6th edition, New York: Harper & Row, →ISBN, →OCLC

Origin of classical liberalism

A retronym to distinguish earlier 19th-century liberalism from social liberalism.

Words formed from classical liberalism

Questions about classical liberalism

What does classical liberalism mean?
Classical liberalism means a political ideology and a branch of liberalism that advocates civil liberties under the rule of law with an emphasis on economic freedom.
What part of speech is classical liberalism?
Classical liberalism is a noun.

Words near classical liberalism in the dictionary

  1. Classical Japanese
  2. classical language
  3. classical languages
  4. Classical Latin
  5. classical liberal
  6. classical liberalism
  7. classical logic
  8. classical logics
  9. Classical Malay
  10. Classical Mandaic
  11. classical mechanics

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: classical liberalism (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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