[f. LIBERAL a. + -ISM. Cf. F. libéralisme.] The holding of liberal opinions in politics or theology; the political tenets characteristic of a Liberal.
1819. Lady Morgan, Autobiog. (1859), 17. He is worthy of a conversion to liberalism.
1826. E. Irving, Babylon, I. III. 246. Religion is the very name of obligation, and liberalism is the very name for the want of obligation.
1837. T. Hook, Jack Brag, xii. The liberalism of the King of the French.
1841. J. H. Newman, in Apol., 313. The more serious thinkers among us are used … to regard the spirit of Liberalism as the characteristic of the destined Antichrist.
1859. Mill, Liberty, i. 11. This mode of thought … was common among the last generation of European liberalism.
1881. Sat. Rev., 23 July, 101/1. The ecclesiastical Liberalism which shaped the Dean’s peculiar view.
