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. Often shortened to: arts. the fine arts, humanities, sociology, languages, and literature

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

Genuine liberal arts learning requires students to wrestle with the best that has been written and said by the most rigorous thinkers, living and dead, on all sides of the issues.

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California grads who moved to New York for college were drawn to smaller, competitive private liberal arts colleges, usually with heftier tuitions than California’s public universities.

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By 1926, the school was on the verge of being able to offer diplomas in the liberal arts.

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“It’s a liberal arts college because these people have so many different interests, and those are not being represented,” said Zhan.

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At Brandeis, we are integrating the liberal arts with the applied arts, giving students “a foot in the library and a foot in the street.”

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Related Words

• mathematics