liberate

   1. to conquer

   Literally, to free:

    'Nehru turned them out in the liberation of Goa.' 'Liberation... did you say liberation!' (Dalrymple, 1998 — Goa was a Portuguese enclave in the subcontinent which India invaded and annexed)

   2. to steal

   Originally, a use by soldiers in the Second World War, when freeing occupied territories and looting property whose owner had vanished tended to go hand in hand:

    It's a gold watch... a liberated gold watch. (Price, 1978)

   Now in general use of thieving:

    'Are you going to be warm enough in that jacket?' 'I'm all right. I liberated it from a second-hand shop.' (Theroux, 1976)

   3. to permit or encourage to flout social convention

   Again the concept of setting free:

    The custom of keen gardeners who once shopped for bedding plants and potting compost was replaced by that of crossdressing businessmen and 'liberated people' who indulged in group sex in the swimming pool. (Daily Telegraph, 28 November 1998 — the proprietor of what had formerly been a garden centre said after his conviction for living off immoral earnings — 'I did not have sex parties. I had liberated parties')

   Whence liberation, as in women's liberation.

   4. peremptorily to dismiss from employment

   The victim is thereby freed from performing the arduous duties of office or employment:

    ... a papal decree was issued by which Dr Errington was 'liberated' from the Co-adjutorship of Westminster, together with the right of succession to the See. (Strachey, 1918 — Manning, lately an archdeacon in the Anglican Church, thus cleared the way for his own succession to Wiseman as Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster)