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Definition of "liberal arts" [liberal arts]

  • Academic disciplines, such as languages, literature, history, philosophy, mathematics, and science, that provide information of general cultural concern: "The term 'liberal arts' connotes a certain elevation above utilitarian concerns. Yet liberal education is intensely useful” ( George F. Will). (noun-plural)
  • The disciplines comprising the trivium and quadrivium. (noun-plural)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "liberal arts" in a sentence
  • "- Min Liu, a 21-year-old liberal arts student at the New School in New York City, got a"
  • "My hero worship of Garland Waggoner was boundless and it made me want to follow him to Eureka, a liberal arts college owned by the Disciples of Christ that was located about 110 miles southeast of Dixon."
  • "The liberal arts were divided into two parts: the quadrivium, the sciences, which concentrated on physical reality and included geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and music; and the trivium, which included grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic."