From dictionary.com
- Narrow-minded; bigoted.
- Archaic. Ungenerous, mean, or stingy.
- Archaic.
1. Lacking liberal culture.
2. Ill-bred; vulgar.
Use this word often in foreign policy discussion in this context:
An anti-democratic regime such as Communist China is one that is illiberal. Al-Qaeda is an illiberal organization.
Use illiberal to describe organizations with universally negative reputations. Don't waste the word in describing the Republicans, no matter how it fits.
The point is to rehabilitate the term "liberal." If illiberal things are bad, then the masses, assuming that the inverse of a true statement is also true, will make the (logically invalid yet true) connection that liberal things are good.