liberal arts

plural noun

1. the academic course of instruction at a college intended to provide general knowledge and comprising the arts, humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences, as opposed to professional or technical subjects.
2. (during the Middle Ages) studies comprising the quadrivium and trivium, including arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music, grammar, rhetoric, and logic.

liberal arts

plural noun

1. the fine arts, humanities, sociology, languages, and literature Often shortened toarts

liberal arts

¹

1. The areas of learning that cultivate general intellectual ability rather than technical or professional skills. The term liberal arts is often used as a synonym for humanities, although the liberal arts also include the sciences. The word liberal comes from the Latin liberalis , meaning suitable for a free man, as opposed to a slave.

liberal arts

²

1. The areas of learning that cultivate general intellectual ability rather than technical or professional skills. Liberal arts is often used as a synonym for humanities, because literature, languages, history, and philosophy are often considered the primary subjects of the liberal arts. The term liberal arts originally meant arts suitable for free people ( libri in Latin ) but not for slaves.

Word History and Origins

Origin of liberal arts¹

First recorded in 1745–55; translation of Latin artēs līberālēs “works befitting a free person,” literally, “skills of freedom”

Example Sentences

Winning the OZY Genius Award brought the spotlight to New College, a small liberal arts school on Florida’s Gulf Coast, with local TV crews from ABC and NBC eager to interview the young inventor.

From Ozy

Studying political science in a liberal arts college was a way for me to figure out what is real.

From Time

One evening last month, two recent college grads — one from a conservative Christian college, the other from a more ecumenical liberal arts university — got together online with a group of their peers.

From Washington Post

Students at the liberal arts school took a self-swab test monitored by a trained professional four times during this period, says John Weinstien, provost and vice president of Simon’s Rock.

From Popular-Science

Its downtown has a liberal arts college not far from a park full of veteran memorials along the edge of a rushing reservoir.

From Ozy

And I systematically went about doing that in the comfort of a four-year liberal arts education, and it was heaven.

From The Daily Beast

Americans starting with Benjamin Franklin have been suspicious of liberal arts higher education.

From The Daily Beast

Then I went to New School in New York, which is a really small liberal arts school.

From The Daily Beast

And a liberal arts education must not be an education in the art of liberalism.

From The Daily Beast

“Liberal arts” comes from the Latin artes liberales, which referred to the subjects citizens studied in their free time.

From The Daily Beast

The fourth quality required in our Order is the taste for useful sciences and the liberal arts.

From Project Gutenberg

In a short time he became learned in all the seven Liberal Arts.

From Project Gutenberg

The universities, however, were occupied with the so-called seven liberal arts, which were really scientific studies.

From Project Gutenberg

Of Mr. Hope's literary acquirements and his patronage of the liberal arts we have already spoken.

From Project Gutenberg

But we, who cultivate and love the liberal arts, cast an attentive eye on what is quite indifferent to the rest of the world.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• mathematics