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CONSERVATIVE
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A person who is reluctant to accept changes and new ideas
Synonyms:
conservative; conservativist
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("conservative" is a kind of...):
adult; grownup (a fully developed person from maturity onward)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "conservative"):
capitalist (a conservative advocate of capitalism)
conformist (someone who conforms to established standards of conduct (especially in religious matters))
fuddy-duddy (a conservative who is old-fashioned or dull in attitude or appearance)
hardliner (a conservative who is uncompromising)
minimalist (a conservative who advocates only minor reforms in government or politics)
mossback (an extremely old-fashioned conservative)
neocon; neoconservative (a conservative who subscribes to neoconservatism)
extreme right-winger; reactionary; ultraconservative (an extreme conservative; an opponent of progress or liberalism)
right-winger; rightist (a member of a right wing political party)
square; square toes (a formal and conservative person with old-fashioned views)
diehard; traditionalist (one who adheres to traditional views)
Antonym:
liberal (a person who favors a political philosophy of progress and reform and the protection of civil liberties)
Derivation:
conservativism (a political or theological orientation advocating the preservation of the best in society and opposing radical changes)
Sense 2
Meaning:
A member of a Conservative Party
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("Conservative" is a kind of...):
fellow member; member (one of the persons who compose a social group (especially individuals who have joined and participate in a group organization))
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Conforming to the standards and conventions of the middle class
Example:
a bourgeois mentality
Synonyms:
bourgeois; conservative; materialistic
Classified under:
Similar:
middle-class (occupying a socioeconomic position intermediate between those of the lower classes and the wealthy)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Resistant to change, particularly in relation to politics or religion
Classified under:
Similar:
blimpish (pompously ultraconservative and nationalistic)
buttoned-up (conservative in professional manner)
fusty; nonprogressive; standpat; unprogressive (old-fashioned and out of date)
hidebound; traditionalist (stubbornly conservative and narrow-minded)
ultraconservative (extremely conservative)
Also:
orthodox (adhering to what is commonly accepted)
right (of or belonging to the political or intellectual right)
Attribute:
ideology; political orientation; political theory (an orientation that characterizes the thinking of a group or nation)
Antonym:
liberal (tolerant of change; not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or tradition)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Unimaginatively conventional
Example:
a colorful character in the buttoned-down, dull-grey world of business
Synonyms:
button-down; buttoned-down; conservative
Classified under:
Similar:
conventional (unimaginative and conformist)
Sense 4
Meaning:
Avoiding excess
Example:
a conservative estimate
Synonyms:
cautious; conservative
Classified under:
Similar:
moderate (being within reasonable or average limits; not excessive or extreme)
Sense 5
Meaning:
Having social or political views favoring conservatism
Classified under:
Similar:
right (of or belonging to the political or intellectual right)
Context examples:
EXAMPLE(S): Procedures may involve the disruption of some body surface (e.g. an incision in a surgical procedure) conservative procedures such as reduction of a luxated joint, including physiotherapy such as chiropractic treatment, massage, balneotherapy, acupuncture, shiatsu, counseling, etc.
(Performed Procedure, NCI Thesaurus/BRIDG)
An expense may come to you out of the blue, so keep plans financially conservative until you see the lay of the land.
(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)
Had she been fourteen instead of twenty-four, she might have been changed by them; but she was twenty-four, conservative by nature and upbringing, and already crystallized into the cranny of life where she had been born and formed.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
Both planets will meet in the conservative and cautious sign of Capricorn.
(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)
The audacity and unconventionality of the storiettes was a shock to bourgeois morality and prejudice; but when Paris went mad over the immediate translation that was made, the American and English reading public followed suit and bought so many copies that Martin compelled the conservative house of Singletree, Darnley & Co. to pay a flat royalty of twenty-five per cent for a third book, and thirty per cent flat for a fourth.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
I know it must be frustrating to have to stop, look, and listen, and then be conservative until you see which way the wind is blowing.
(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)
Thus, in addition to the cousins Dorothy and Florence, Martin encountered two university professors, one of Latin, the other of English; a young army officer just back from the Philippines, one-time school-mate of Ruth's; a young fellow named Melville, private secretary to Joseph Perkins, head of the San Francisco Trust Company; and finally of the men, a live bank cashier, Charles Hapgood, a youngish man of thirty-five, graduate of Stanford University, member of the Nile Club and the Unity Club, and a conservative speaker for the Republican Party during campaigns—in short, a rising young man in every way.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
If you don’t anticipate high-level check writing, be conservative in spending and see how things go.
(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)
In spite of their Unitarian proclivities and their masks of conservative broadmindedness, they were two generations behind interpretative science: their mental processes were mediaeval, while their thinking on the ultimate data of existence and of the universe struck him as the same metaphysical method that was as young as the youngest race, as old as the cave-man, and older—the same that moved the first Pleistocene ape-man to fear the dark; that moved the first hasty Hebrew savage to incarnate Eve from Adam's rib; that moved Descartes to build an idealistic system of the universe out of the projections of his own puny ego; and that moved the famous British ecclesiastic to denounce evolution in satire so scathing as to win immediate applause and leave his name a notorious scrawl on the page of history.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
I remember being surprised by his graceful, conservative fox-trot—I had never seen him dance before.
(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
