conservative

Meaning

Noun

1. A person who favors maintenance of the status quo.
2. One who seeks to promote or preserve traditional values or institutions.
3. (Canada, US, especially) One who seeks to promote traditions in a particular domain (e.g. a fiscal conservative or a social conservative).

Adj

1. Cautious, moderate.
2. Tending to resist change or innovation.
3. Based on pessimistic assumptions, and on the low side.
4. (Canada, US) Supporting some combination of fiscal, political or social conservatism.
5. (British) Relating to the Conservative Party.
6. (not-comparable) Neither creating nor destroying a given quantity.
7. Having power to preserve in a safe or entire state, or from loss, waste, or injury; preservative.
8. (Judaism) Relating to Conservative Judaism.
9. Conventional, traditional, and moderate in style and appearance; not extreme, excessive, faddish, or intense.
10. Not including any operation or intervention (said of a treatment, see conservative treatment)
11. Having few changes relative to an older form, especially in comparison to related varieties.
12. That is the gradient of a function.

Synonyms

reactionary

old-fashioned

cautious

traditional

right-wing

unadventurous

button-down

moderate

buttoned-down

old fashioned

right

careful

conservativist

right-winger

diehard

guarded

negative

staid

conservatism

preservative

materialistic

bourgeois

Tory

prudent

reserved

retrograde

rightist

right wing

routine

saving

square

stuffy

temperate

tory

traditionalist

unchanging

wary

Republican

not extreme

square-toed

standpatter

Die Hard

registered Republican

Conservative

square toes

white-bread

pro-family

bigoted

conservador

blimpish

Translations

conservateur

συντηρητικός

conservador

conservatore

conservador

konservativ

conservador

conservatief

behoudend

conservativo

tutucu

Konservativer

Konservative

prudente

Pronounced as (IPA)

/kənˈsɝvətɪv/

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French conservatif, from Latin cōnservō (“to preserve”). Equivalent to conserve + -ative.