Hypertext Webster Gateway: "libertine"
From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary (easton)
Libertine
found only Acts 6:9, one who once had been a slave, but who had
been set at liberty, or the child of such a person. In this case
the name probably denotes those descendants of Jews who had been
carried captives to Rome as prisoners of war by Pompey and other
Roman generals in the Syrian wars, and had afterwards been
liberated. In A.D. 19 these manumitted Jews were banished from
Rome. Many of them found their way to Jerusalem, and there
established a synagogue.
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web1913)
Libertine \Lib"er*tine\ (-t[i^]n), n. [L. libertinus freedman,
from libertus one made free, fr. liber free: cf. F. libertin.
See {Liberal}.]
1. (Rom. Antiq.) A manumitted slave; a freedman; also, the
son of a freedman.
2. (Eccl. Hist.) One of a sect of Anabaptists, in the
fifteenth and early part of the sixteenth century, who
rejected many of the customs and decencies of life, and
advocated a community of goods and of women.
3. One free from restraint; one who acts according to his
impulses and desires; now, specifically, one who gives
rein to lust; a rake; a debauchee.
Like a puffed and reckless libertine, Himself the
primrose path of dalliance treads. --Shak.
4. A defamatory name for a freethinker. [Obsoles.]
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web1913)
Libertine \Lib"er*tine\, a. [L. libertinus of a freedman: cf. F.
libertin. See {Libertine}, n. ]
1. Free from restraint; uncontrolled. [Obs.]
You are too much libertine. --Beau. & Fl.
2. Dissolute; licentious; profligate; loose in morals; as,
libertine principles or manners. --Bacon.
From WordNet (r) 1.7 (wn)
libertine
adj : unrestrained by convention or morality; "Congreve draws a
debauched aristocratic society"; "deplorably dissipated
and degraded"; "riotous living"; "fast women" [syn: {debauched},
{degenerate}, {degraded}, {dissipated}, {dissolute}, {profligate},
{riotous}, {fast}]
n : a dissolute person; usually a man who is morally
unrestrained [syn: {debauchee}, {rounder}]
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