What is the difference between liberty and freedom?
In: Other
They are generally synonymous in common usage, but more precisely freedom is the lack of requirement to do something, while liberty is the ability to do something.
So for example you might have the freedom to cross state borders without being searched, and you might have the liberty to speak your mind about the government.
None whatsoever. The terms are almost perfectly synonymous. And neither is really used in a technical context enough that they would need to be differentiated.
In my opinion, freedom is the ability to do stuff of your own choosing, while liberty is the access to freedom.
The word freedom stems from the Germanic language family whereas the word liberty is from the Latin / Romance / French language. They mean the same thing and are synonyms. I guess liberty is used in more formal situations. A lot of the technical / formal terms used in the English language are derived from Latin and Greek.
Latest Answers