four freedoms

plural noun

1. freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear: stated as goals of U.S. policy by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on January 6, 1941.

Four Freedoms

1. Four kinds of freedom mentioned by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a speech in 1941 as worth fighting for: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. Roosevelt spoke of the Four Freedoms before the United States entered World War II . He was presenting the war as a struggle for freedom and calling for aid to the Allies .

Example Sentences

Humanitarian organisation Save Ukraine has managed to rescue at least 95 kidnapped Ukrainian children and will receive the international Four Freedoms Award in the Netherlands in recognition of its achievements.

From BBC

Kennan’s outlook should be seen as related to FDR’s “Four Freedoms” speech, defining what we were fighting for in World War II, and also to Eleanor Roosevelt’s role in establishing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.

From Salon

Franklin D. Roosevelt, in one of his most important speeches, committed himself to “the four freedoms”: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear.

From Washington Post

It figured prominently in a famous speech delivered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941, as the world faced the onslaught of Nazi Germany, in which he described the essential liberties that America stood for in what became known as the “Four Freedoms Speech”: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear.

From Washington Post

For example, Rockwell’s Four Freedoms paintings from 1943 were inspired by President Franklin Roosevelt’s address to Congress—which actually have become a new subject in contemporary art, with the group Four Freedoms Coalition.

From Slate

Related Words

• civil rights
• freedom
• freedom of religion
• freedom of speech