Radical vs. Liberal — What's the Difference?

Arising from or going to a root or source; basic

Favoring reform, open to new ideas, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; not bound by traditional thinking; broad-minded.

Departing markedly from the usual or customary; extreme or drastic

Of, relating to, or characteristic of liberalism.

Relating to or advocating fundamental or revolutionary changes in current practices, conditions, or institutions

Liberal Of, designating, or characteristic of a political party founded on or associated with principles of social and political liberalism, especially in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States.

(Medicine) Relating to or being surgery that is extreme or drastic in an effort to eradicate all existing or potential disease

Tending to give freely; generous

(Linguistics) Of or being a root

Generous in amount; ample

Of, relating to, or arising from a root

Not strict or literal; loose or approximate

Arising from the base of a stem or from a below-ground stem or rhizome

Of, relating to, or based on the traditional arts and sciences of a college or university curriculum

(Slang) Excellent; wonderful.

(Archaic) Permissible or appropriate for a person of free birth; befitting a lady or gentleman.

One who advocates fundamental or revolutionary changes in current practices, conditions, or institutions

(Obsolete) Morally unrestrained; licentious.

(Mathematics) The root of a quantity as indicated by the radical sign.

A person with liberal ideas or opinions.

Symbol R An atom or a group of atoms with one unpaired electron.

Liberal A member of a Liberal political party.

(Linguistics) See root1.

Pertaining to those arts and sciences the study of which is considered to provide general knowledge, as opposed to vocational/occupational, technical or mechanical training.

Any of the basic Chinese characters that are combined to form more complex characters.

Generous; permitting liberty; willing to give unsparingly.

Any of the traditional set of basic strokes or groups of strokes that make up Chinese characters and are used to classify and organize them in dictionaries.

Ample, abundant; generous in quantity.

Favoring fundamental change, or change at the root cause of a matter.

(obsolete) Unrestrained, licentious.

Pertaining to a root of a plant.

Widely open to new ideas, willing to depart from established opinions or conventions; permissive.

Pertaining to the basic or intrinsic nature of something.

(politics) Open to political or social changes and reforms associated with either classical or modern liberalism.

Thoroughgoing; far-reaching.

One with liberal views, supporting individual liberty (see Wikipedia's article on Liberalism).

Of or pertaining to the root of a word.

(US) Someone with progressive or left-wing views; one with a left-wing ideology.

Produced using the root of the tongue.

A supporter of any of several liberal parties.

Involving free radicals.

(UK) One who favors individual voting rights, human and civil rights, and laissez-faire markets also called "classical liberal"; compare libertarian.

(math) Relating to a radix or mathematical root.

Free by birth; hence, befitting a freeman or gentleman; refined; noble; independent; free; not servile or mean; as, a liberal ancestry; a liberal spirit; liberal arts or studies.

Excellent; awesome.

Bestowing in a large and noble way, as a freeman; generous; bounteous; open-handed; as, a liberal giver.

A member of the most progressive wing of the Liberal Party; someone favouring social reform (but generally stopping short of socialism).

Bestowed in a large way; hence, more than sufficient; abundant; bountiful; ample; profuse; as, a liberal gift; a liberal discharge of matter or of water.

A member of an influential, centrist political party favouring moderate social reform, a republican constitution, and secular politics.

Not strict or rigorous; not confined or restricted to the literal sense; free; as, a liberal translation of a classic, or a liberal construction of law or of language.

A person with radical opinions.

Not narrow or contracted in mind; not selfish; enlarged in spirit; catholic.

(arithmetic) A root (of a number or quantity).

Free to excess; regardless of law or moral restraint; licentious.

(linguistics) In logographic writing systems such as the Chinese writing system, the portion of a character (if any) that provides an indication of its meaning, as opposed to phonetic.

Not bound by orthodox tenets or established forms in political or religious philosophy; independent in opinion; not conservative; friendly to great freedom in the constitution or administration of government; having tendency toward democratic or republican, as distinguished from monarchical or aristocratic, forms; as, liberal thinkers; liberal Christians; the Liberal party.

(linguistics)Celtic In Celtic languages, refers to the basic, underlying form of an initial consonant which can be further mutated under the Celtic initial consonant mutations.

One who favors greater freedom in political or religious matters; an opponent of the established systems; a reformer; in English politics, a member of the Liberal party, so called. Cf. Whig.

(linguistics)Semitic linguistics In Semitic languages, any one of the set of consonants (typically three) that make up a root.

A person who favors a political philosophy of progress and reform and the protection of civil liberties

(chemistry) A group of atoms, joined by covalent bonds, that take part in reactions as a single unit.

A person who favors an economic theory of laissez-faire and self-regulating markets

(organic chemistry) A free radical.

Showing or characterized by broad-mindedness;

Given an ideal I in a commutative ring R, another ideal, denoted Rad(I) or $\backslash sqrt\{I\}$, such that an element x ∈ R is in Rad(I) if, for some positive integer n, xⁿ ∈ I; equivalently, the intersection of all prime ideals containing I.

Having political or social views favoring reform and progress

Given a ring R, an ideal containing elements of R that share a property considered, in some sense, "not good".

Tolerant of change; not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or tradition

The intersection of maximal submodules of a given module.

Given or giving freely;

(number theory) The product of the distinct prime factors of a given positive integer.

Not literal;

Of or pertaining to the root; proceeding directly from the root.

Hence: Of or pertaining to the root or origin; reaching to the center, to the foundation, to the ultimate sources, to the principles, or the like; original; fundamental; thorough-going; unsparing; extreme; as, radical evils; radical reform; a radical party.

Belonging to, or proceeding from, the root of a plant; as, radical tubers or hairs.

Relating, or belonging, to the root, or ultimate source of derivation; as, a radical verbal form.

Of or pertaining to a radix or root; as, a radical quantity; a radical sign. See below.

A primitive word; a radix, root, or simple, underived, uncompounded word; an etymon.

One who advocates radical changes in government or social institutions, especially such changes as are intended to level class inequalities; - opposed to conservative.

A characteristic, essential, and fundamental constituent of any compound; hence, sometimes, an atom.

Specifically, a group of two or more atoms, not completely saturated, which are so linked that their union implies certain properties, and are conveniently regarded as playing the part of a single atom; a residue; - called also a compound radical. Cf. Residue.

(chemistry) two or more atoms bound together as a single unit and forming part of a molecule

An atom or group of atoms with at least one unpaired electron; in the body it is usually an oxygen molecule than has lost an electron and will stabilize itself by stealing an electron from a nearby molecule;

A person who has radical ideas or opinions

A character conveying the lexical meaning of a logogram

A sign placed in front of an expression to denote that a root is to be extracted

(linguistics) the form of a word after all affixes are removed;

(used of opinions and actions) far beyond the norm;

Markedly new or introducing radical change;

Arising from or going to the root;

Of or relating to or constituting a linguistic root;

Especially of leaves; located at the base of a plant or stem; especially arising directly from the root or rootstock or a root-like stem;