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illiberal

/ɪ(l)ˈlɪbərəl/
IPA guide

Someone who's illiberal is close-minded and intolerant. Your illiberal grandfather might constantly complain about "kids today with their long hair and tattoos."

An illiberal person tends to have old-fashioned values and opinions and isn't usually interested in considering other perspectives. It's illiberal to dismiss unfamiliar religious beliefs — or the lack of any religious belief — as just plain wrong. The original, 1500s meaning of illiberal was "ungentlemanly," from the Latin word illiberalis, "ungenerous, mean, or unworthy of a freeman." The "narrow-minded" sense of the word is from the mid-1600s.

Definitions of illiberal
  1. adjective
    narrow-minded about cherished opinions
    synonyms: intolerant
    blinkered, narrow, narrow-minded
    lacking tolerance or flexibility or breadth of view
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