These words refer to the fundamental claims a person can properly make or to his unfettered ability to choose. Right suggests a concrete claim established by legal, ethical or religious sanctions: the right to own property; the right of equality before the law. Although someone claiming a right tends to argue that it is inherent, a person’s rights are differently spelt out in different cultures: the right of an Arab to have several wives; the right of a serf to remain immovably on his land. Liberty , by contrast, is a more abstract and general notion suggesting the opportunity to choose among alternatives. To act according to one’ own desires, without external repression or restraint.

• Magna Carta is the great foundation-stone of British liberties .

Liberty may sometimes, in fact, refer to an unwarranted breach of someone else’s right to consideration or privacy: taking the liberty of phoning you directly; unbridled liberty without regard for the rights of others. Civil rights , especially in the United States, is now understood to refer to racial equality, while civil liberties may be applied to the rights enumerated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Freedom is close to liberty in its abstract generality but stresses a total lack of constraint more than the opportunity for choice: clothes cut to allow freedom of movement; rulers who took it as their right to suppress freedom of speech.

Prerogative and privilege are much more specific in their meanings than the other words here. Prerogative refers to a right that one has by virtue of his age, sex or position: a host’s prerogative to turn away uninvited guests; a woman’s prerogative to change her mind; an employee’s prerogative to receive adequate retirement pay. Privilege suggests advantages given as favours or added luxuries rather than as necessary rights; a privilege may be given as a concession in exchange for something else.

• Arriving early gave him the privilege of an unhurried dinner; University education is nowadays taken as a right rather than a privilege .