Definition: conservative

Source: WordNet (r) 1.7

conservative
     adj 1: resistant to change [ant: liberal]
     2: opposed to liberal reforms
     3: avoiding excess; "a conservative estimate" [syn: cautious]
     4: unimaginatively conventional; "a colorful character in the
        buttoned-down, dull-gray world of business"- Newsweek
        [syn: button-down, buttoned-down]
     5: conforming to the standards and conventions of the middle
        class; "a bourgeois mentality" [syn: bourgeois, materialistic]
     n : a person who has conservative ideas or opinions [syn: conservativist]
         [ant: liberal]

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Conservative \Con*serv"a*tive\, a. [Cf. F. conservatif.]
   1. Having power to preserve in a safe of entire state, or
      from loss, waste, or injury; preservative.

Conservative \Con*serv"a*tive\, n.
   1. One who, or that which, preserves from ruin, injury,
      innovation, or radical change; a preserver; a conserver.

            The Holy Spirit is the great conservative of the new
            life.                                 --Jer. Taylor.

   2. One who desires to maintain existing institutions and
      customs; also, one who holds moderate opinions in
      politics; -- opposed to revolutionary or radical.

   3. (Eng. Hist.) A member of the Conservative party.

CONSERVATIVE, n.  A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as
distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with
others.