Liberal – Liberalismo

Abstract

The history of the words liberal and liberalism and the usages that were made in the Portuguese context share, as expected, many of the lines that are detectable in other scenarios. If you seek for specifics, perhaps they can be found, firstly, in the greater persistence of the old sense of liberality, in the fact that it was not the word (Liberal) that served as the primary identifier to those who were opposed to Realist/Absolutist and, finally, in the fact that only belated and partially, although on a consistent basis, those words have been connected to a different policy doctrine of the emerging democracy.

Keywords

• liberty
• liberalism
• liberal
• liberality