liberal arts
liberal arts
general title for studies in many areas (such as the arts, natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities)
Liberal arts education
The
liberal arts (
Latin:
artes liberales) are those subjects or skills that in
classical antiquity were considered essential for a free person (
Latin:
liberalis, "worthy of a free person") to know in order to take an active part in civic life, something that (for
Ancient Greece) included participating in public debate, defending oneself in court, serving on juries, and most importantly, military service.
Grammar,
logic, and
rhetoric were the core liberal arts, while
arithmetic,
geometry, the theory of
music, and
astronomy also played a (somewhat lesser) part in education.
liberal arts
Noun
1. studies intended to provide general knowledge and intellectual skills (rather than occupational or professional skills); "the college of arts and sciences"
(synonym) humanistic discipline, humanities, arts
(hypernym) discipline, subject, subject area, subject field, field, field of study, study, bailiwick, branch of knowledge
(hyponym) neoclassicism
liberal arts
Synonyms and related words:
academic specialty, area, classical education, core curriculum, course, course of study, curriculum, discipline, elective, field, general education, general studies, humanities, major, minor, proseminar, quadrivium, refresher course, scientific education, seminar, specialty, study, subdiscipline, subject, technical education, trivium
Source: Moby Thesaurus, which is part of the
Moby Project created by Grady Ward. In 1996 Grady Ward placed this thesaurus in the public domain.
liberal arts