Definitions for: Conservative


[n] a person who has conservative ideas or opinions
[adj] resistant to change
[adj] conforming to the standards and conventions of the middle class; "a bourgeois mentality"
[adj] unimaginatively conventional; "a colorful character in the buttoned-down, dull-gray world of business"- Newsweek
[adj] avoiding excess; "a conservative estimate"
[adj] opposed to liberal reforms



Webster (1913) Definition: Con*serv"a*tive, a. [Cf. F. conservatif.]
1. Having power to preserve in a safe of entire state, or
from loss, waste, or injury; preservative.



2. Tending or disposed to maintain existing institutions;
opposed to change or innovation.

3. Of or pertaining to a political party which favors the
conservation of existing institutions and forms of
government, as the Conservative party in England; --
contradistinguished from Liberal and Radical.

We have always been conscientiously attached to what
is called the Tory, and which might with more
propriety be called the Conservative, party.
--Quart. Rev.
(1830).

Conservative system (Mech.), a material system of such a
nature that after the system has undergone any series of
changes, and been brought back in any manner to its
original state, the whole work done by external agents on
the system is equal to the whole work done by the system
overcoming external forces. --Clerk
Maxwell.


Con*serv"a*tive, n.
1. One who, or that which, preserves from ruin, injury,
innovation, or radical change; a preserver; a conserver.

The Holy Spirit is the great conservative of the new
life. --Jer. Taylor.

2. One who desires to maintain existing institutions and
customs; also, one who holds moderate opinions in
politics; -- opposed to revolutionary or radical.

3. (Eng. Hist.) A member of the Conservative party.

Synonyms: blimpish, bourgeois, button-down, buttoned-down, buttoned-up, cautious, conservativist, conventional, fusty, hidebound, materialistic, middle-class, moderate, nonprogressive, standpat(a), traditionalist, ultraconservative, unprogressive

Antonyms: liberal, liberal, progressive

See Also: adult, capitalist, conformist, diehard, extreme right-winger, grownup, hardliner, minimalist, orthodox, reactionary, right, rightist, right-winger, rugged individualist, square, square toes, traditionalist, ultraconservative

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