Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change.
- adjective Traditional or restrained in style.
- adjective Moderate; cautious.
- adjective Of or relating to the political philosophy of conservatism.
- adjective Belonging to a conservative party, group, or movement.
- adjective Of, designating, or characteristic of a political party founded on or associated with principles of social and political conservatism, especially in the United Kingdom or Canada.
- adjective Of or adhering to Conservative Judaism.
- adjective Tending to conserve; preservative.
- noun One favoring traditional views and values.
- noun A supporter of political conservatism.
- noun A member or supporter of a Conservative political party.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Preservative; having power or tendency to preserve in a safe or entire state; protecting from loss, waste, or injury: said of things.
- Disposed to retain and maintain what is established, as institutions, customs, and the like; opposed to innovation and change; in an extreme and unfavorable sense, opposed to progress: said of persons or their characteristics.
- Specifically In politics: Antagonistic to change in the institutions of the country, civil or ecclesiastical; especially, opposed to change in the direction of democracy.
- Hence- [capitalized] Of or pertaining to the Conservatives or their principles. See II., 3.
- noun One who aims, or that which tends, to preserve from injury, decay, or loss; a preserver or preservative.
- noun One who is opposed by nature or on principle to innovation and change; in an unfavorable sense, one who from prejudice or lack of foresight is opposed to true progress.
- noun [capitalized] In Great Britain, a Tory: a name first adopted by the Tory party about the time of the passing of the first Reform Bill (1832).
- noun In U. s, history, one of the group of Democrats who, during Van Buren's administration, voted with the Whigs against the Independent Treasury Bill.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun One who, or that which, preserves from ruin, injury, innovation, or radical change; a preserver; a conserver.
- noun One who desires to maintain existing institutions and customs; also, one who holds moderate opinions in politics; -- opposed to
revolutionary orradical . - noun (Eng. Hist.) A member of the Conservative party.
- adjective Having power to preserve in a safe of entire state, or from loss, waste, or injury; preservative.
- adjective Tending or disposed to maintain existing institutions; opposed to change or innovation.
- adjective Of or pertaining to a political party which favors the conservation of existing institutions and forms of government, as the
Conservative party in England; -- contradistinguished fromLiberal andRadical . - adjective (Mech.) a material system of such a nature that after the system has undergone any series of changes, and been brought back in any manner to its original state, the whole work done by external agents on the system is equal to the whole work done by the system overcoming external forces.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A person who favors maintenance of the
status quo or reversion to some earlier status. - noun US, economics A
fiscal conservative - noun US, politics A
political conservative - noun US, social sciences A
social conservative . - adjective Tending to
resist change . - adjective Based on
pessimistic assumptions . - adjective US, economics, politics, social sciences Supporting some
combination offiscal ,political orsocial conservatism. - adjective US, politics Relating to the
Republican Party , regardless of its conservatism. - adjective UK, politics Relating to the
Conservative Party . - adjective physics (no
comparative orsuperlative ) Neither creating nor destroying a given quantity.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective conforming to the standards and conventions of the middle class
- adjective avoiding excess
- adjective unimaginatively conventional
- noun a person who is reluctant to accept changes and new ideas
- adjective having social or political views favoring conservatism
- noun a member of a Conservative Party
- adjective resistant to change
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Unfortunately, modern liberals have butchered the term conservative by teaching people that it means being backward and close-minded--and who wants to think of themselves this way?
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Ronald Reagan who defined the term conservative for a generation was occasionally accused of not being conservative enough and liked to joke that sometimes his right arm didn't know what his far-right arm was doing.
Mark Joseph: Conservative Politicians Challenged From The Right 2010
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Ronald Reagan who defined the term conservative for a generation was occasionally accused of not being conservative enough and liked to joke that sometimes his right arm didn't know what his far-right arm was doing.
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Norman Solomon: Well, what goes by the term conservative is too often a sort of a euphemism for dog eat dog, whoever comes out on top, we believe in the survival of the fittest – a sort of perversion of Darwinism taken into a social realm, where generally, the predatory nature in the animal kingdom of one category of animal inflicted on another is sort of mimicked and replicated.
Failed Conservative Values: Norman Solomon on Dog Eat Dog Greed 2008
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And so we see that the term conservative has little value as a label; in fact, one might say that its label-value varies inversely with one's right to wear it.
Why I'm voting for Obama in the Wisconsin primary. Ann Althouse 2008
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AND: I should add, in case you're new around here, that I never use the label conservative for myself and repeatedly say that it is not apt.
Archive 2007-03-01 Ann Althouse 2007
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Democrats should not surrender the term conservative or self-identified conservative voters to Republicans.
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Well, I really do think of myself as a moderate; I'm happy to accept the label conservative, and I'll use it myself, but in fact, the topics that I tend to comment about, y'know, the stuff that really starts arguments, tends to be that which I have the strongest opinion on, which tends to be stuff where I'm less moderate.
"Ann Althouse Defends Scott Turow's Honor." Ann Althouse 2007
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At this point, in the brutish life of an empire, the term conservative becomes a misnomer.
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Apparently, the term conservative has been fixed around contemporary conservative hegemony.
Book Review: Conservatives Without Conscience, by John W. Dean 2006
bilby commented on the word conservative
"Mortati, many believed, could have been Pope in his younger days had he not been so broad-minded. When it came to pursuing the papacy, there was a Holy Trinity - Conservative. Conservative. Conservative."
- 'Angels And Demons', Dan Brown.
February 26, 2008
chained_bear commented on the word conservative
Pretty good quote here. (Not political.)
August 12, 2009