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  • four freedoms
    four freedoms
    plural noun
    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
    Four Freedoms
    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.
Synonyms

four freedoms

American  

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 Cultural  

  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

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

That’s not to say Roosevelt’s speech, or Rockwell’s visual response to it, made manifest the four freedoms articulated in January of 1941.

From The Guardian • May 25, 2018

Later to be known as the four freedoms, they were based on principles outlined in a 2003 speech by former FCC Chairman Michael Powell, a Republican, and said that consumers were entitled to:

From Los Angeles Times • May 3, 2017

Guy Verhofstadt said the negotiations would be "intense" and there could be no compromise on the four freedoms underpinning the EU.

From BBC • Nov. 24, 2016

Herein lies the “indivisibility” of the four freedoms.

From Economist • Jul. 14, 2016

Two years ago I spoke in my Annual Message of four freedoms.

From State of the Union Address by Roosevelt, Franklin Delano

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.