“liberating” is a form of
liberate
UK /ˈlɪbəɹeɪt/ · US /ˈlɪbəˌɹeɪt/ verb, adjective, noun
Forms liberates liberating liberated liberatest liberatedst liberateth
- verb Often followed by from: to allow or cause (someone or something) to be free; to set free, to release.
- verb To free (someone or something) from discriminatory or oppressive attitudes, inhibition, or restraint. “You need to free your mind and liberate yourself from prejudice.”
- verb To release (someone) from slavery; to manumit.
- verb (sometimes ironic) To free (a place such as a country, or the residents thereof) from an occupying force, or from oppression such as unjust rule.
- verb (chemistry, physics) To cause (energy or a substance) to be released through a chemical reaction or physical decomposition. “Since the reaction liberates a large amount of chlorine gas, a powerful ventilation system is recommended.”
- verb (originally military slang, euphemistic, informal) To take (property belonging to someone else) by force or theft; to loot, to rob, to steal. “We didn’t need IDs. We just liberated these beers from the back of the shop.”
- adjective (chiefly Scotland, obsolete) Freed, released; free.
- noun (UK) A writ issued out of the Chancery to authorize the Exchequer to pay a debt, pension, etc., on behalf of the Crown.
- noun (UK) A writ issued to a jailer to release a prisoner on bail.
- noun (UK, US) A writ issued to a sheriff to release property (goods or land) from their custody.
Synonyms
befree free absolve deliver discharge disentangle extricate let go let loose loose release set free turn loose unleash emancipate unloose unloosen
Antonyms
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Latin līberātus (“freed, liberated; absolved, acquitted; released”); see English -ate (suffix forming verbs, and used as the ending of participial adjectives and obsolete past participles from Latin). Līberātus is the perfect passive participle of līberō (“to free, liberate; to absolve, acquit; to release”), from līber (“free, unrestricted”), + -ō (suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs); and līberō is ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁léwdʰeros (“free”), from *h₁lewdʰ- (“to grow; people”) + *-teros (contrastive or oppositional adjectival suffix) (*h₁léwdʰeros possibly originally meant ‘belonging to one’s own people’, excluding slaves who were captured from other groups of people, and thus later came to mean “free (not enslaved)”). Not related to deliberate.
From Late Middle English liberate (“warrant for payment of an allowance, debt, pension, etc.; warrant for delivery of property from a sheriff’s custody”, noun), from Law French liberate, from Anglo-Norman liberate, and from their etymon Late Latin liberate (“name of such a writ”), a noun use of Latin līberāte (“deliver”) (commonly the first word of such writs), the second-person plural present active imperative of līberō (“to free, liberate; to absolve, acquit; to release”): see further at etymology 1. Compare English allocate (“warrant for the payment of an allowance, debt, pension, etc.”).
Webster’s 1913
- verb To release from restraint or bondage; to set at liberty; to free; to manumit; to disengage; as, to liberate a slave or prisoner; to liberate the mind from prejudice; to liberate gases.
Etymology [L. liberatus, p. p. of liberare to free, fr. liber free. See Liberal, a., and cf. Deliver.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “liberate”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details