Synonym Chooser

How is the word liberty different from other nouns like it?

The words freedom and license are common synonyms of liberty. While all three words mean "the power or condition of acting without compulsion," liberty suggests release from former restraint or compulsion.

the released prisoner had difficulty adjusting to his new liberty

When could freedom be used to replace liberty?

In some situations, the words freedom and liberty are roughly equivalent. However, freedom has a broad range of application from total absence of restraint to merely a sense of not being unduly hampered or frustrated.

freedom of the press

When is it sensible to use license instead of liberty?

Although the words license and liberty have much in common, license implies freedom specially granted or conceded and may connote an abuse of freedom.

freedom without responsibility may degenerate into license

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of liberty Reagan believed, like Kennedy, Truman and Roosevelt, that America should promote human liberty. Kathleen Collins, Twin Cities, 26 Oct. 2025 Keith Urban's romantic lyrical liberties are to be taken very lightly — so says the country singer amid his divorce from Hollywood superstar Nicole Kidman. Joey Nolfi, Entertainment Weekly, 24 Oct. 2025 If, as Lloyd Matthews has argued, America’s founding ideals of liberty are intimately linked to Julius Caesar, that connection should remind us that such liberty requires due process to function properly. JSTOR Daily, 23 Oct. 2025 Murphy has previously been criticized by the subjects and families of those depicted on Monster, which has been known to take creative liberties with the stories of Jeffrey Dahmer and Erik and Lyle Menendez. Glenn Garner, Deadline, 23 Oct. 2025 See All Example Sentences for liberty
Recent Examples of Synonyms for liberty
Noun
  • The best heroes are beloved because their choices — admirable, messy, or otherwise — are hard ones made in service of something greater.
    Christopher Cruz, Rolling Stone, 7 Nov. 2025
  • The two were impeccably dressed as Gomez and Morticia Addams, which is a canonically Gay couple costume choice — Lakshmi, as Morticia, was holding scissors in one of the posts, for crying out loud.
    James Factora, Them., 7 Nov. 2025
Noun
  • Across the eight-episode first season, the Crutchfields navigate living under one roof while trying to maintain their own autonomy.
    Aramide Tinubu, Variety, 3 Nov. 2025
  • The plea—legally impossible but symbolically potent—highlights the limits of judicial authority over prison placements, the strain of the mental health crises inside the federal system, and the uneasy intersection between acts of political violence and debates about personal autonomy at life’s end.
    Robert Alexander, MSNBC Newsweek, 31 Oct. 2025
Noun
  • That will give defensive coordinator Zach Orr more options with his pressure packages and perhaps create less dependence on blitzes to harass the quarterback.
    Jeff Zrebiec, New York Times, 5 Nov. 2025
  • With a more silver-forward tone than the other evergreen-heavy garlands on this list, Pottery Barn’s faux juniper option is sure to provide a welcome contrast from the rest of your holiday decor.
    Kate McGregor, Architectural Digest, 5 Nov. 2025
Noun
  • Steve Coppell knew how to manage people, play the right tactics and give us the freedom to express ourselves.
    Matt Woosnam, New York Times, 25 Oct. 2025
  • Other artists address psychological and ecological rupture, from Shirin Neshat’s haunting meditations on freedom to Sharbendu De’s visions of climate futures.
    PhotoVogue, Vogue, 25 Oct. 2025
Noun
  • Whether or not to cut back coneflowers is ultimately based on preference, but there are some advantages to delaying the process.
    Karen Brewer Grossman, Southern Living, 24 Oct. 2025
  • To combat this, a 4-2-3-1 can be morphed into multiple defensive shapes depending on the head coach’s preference.
    Mark Carey, New York Times, 23 Oct. 2025
Noun
  • Rarely in American history have US presidents supported constraints on American sovereignty.
    Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 5 Nov. 2025
  • The flag, a symbol of the tribe’s long and hard-fought sovereignty, the ways its people have given to the Elk Grove community, and ties to land that date back, in Elk Grove Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen’s remarks, to time immemorial, launches the city’s commemoration of Native American Heritage Month.
    Darrell Smith, Sacbee.com, 3 Nov. 2025
Noun
  • As this brief survey suggests, the patriots’ success in drawing foreign partners into the war was essential to achieving American independence.
    Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 7 Nov. 2025
  • The forest for the trees Nestled between China, India and Thailand, Myanmar gained independence from Britain in 1948 but came under military dictatorship in 1962.
    Miami Herald, Miami Herald, 7 Nov. 2025
Noun
  • This visit was very important signal for our partners that Kyiv, much more safety right now, and also very important signal that Great Britain stay together with Ukraine, support Ukraine -- support our country in the fight for our freedom, for our independency.
    ABC News, ABC News, 10 Apr. 2022
  • Yet the careful reader will appreciate the significance of the Puritan Cromwell’s independency.
    Barton Swaim, WSJ, 27 Dec. 2021

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Cite this Entry

“Liberty.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/liberty. Accessed 8 Nov. 2025.

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