liberal vs stern

liberal

adj
  • Widely open to new ideas, willing to depart from established opinions or conventions; permissive. 

  • Generous; permitting liberty; willing to give unsparingly. 

  • Ample, abundant; generous in quantity. 

  • Open to political or social changes and reforms associated with either classical or modern liberalism. 

  • Pertaining to those arts and sciences the study of which is considered to provide general knowledge, as opposed to vocational/occupational, technical or mechanical training. 

noun
  • A supporter of any of several liberal parties. 

  • One who favors individual voting rights, human and civil rights, and laissez-faire markets (also called "classical liberal"; compare libertarian). 

  • One with liberal views, supporting individual liberty (see Wikipedia's article on Liberalism). 

  • Someone with progressive or left-wing views; one with a left-wing ideology. 

stern

noun
  • A bird, the black tern. 

  • The tail of an animal; now used only of the tail of a dog. 

  • The hinder part of anything. 

  • The post of management or direction. 

  • The rear part or after end of a ship or vessel. 

adj
  • Grim and forbidding in appearance. 

  • Having a hardness and severity of nature or manner. 

verb
  • To propel or move backward or stern-first in the water. 

How often have the words liberal and stern occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )