conservative adjective [Cf. F. conservatif.]

1. Having power to preserve in a safe of entire state, or from loss, waste, or injury; preservative.

2. Tending or disposed to maintain existing institutions; opposed to change or innovation.

3. Of or pertaining to a political party which favors the conservation of existing institutions and forms of government, as the Conservative party in England; – contradistinguished from Liberal and Radical.

We have always been conscientiously attached to what is called the Tory, and which might with more propriety be called the Conservative, party. Quart. Rev. (1830).

Conservative system (Mech.)

a material system of such a nature that after the system has undergone any series of changes, and been brought back in any manner to its original state, the whole work done by external agents on the system is equal to the whole work done by the system overcoming external forces. Clerk Maxwell

Con-serv′a-tive noun 1. One who, or that which, preserves from ruin, injury, innovation, or radical change; a preserver; a conserver.

The Holy Spirit is the great conservative of the new life. Jer. Taylor.

2. One who desires to maintain existing institutions and customs; also, one who holds moderate opinions in politics; – opposed to revolutionary or radical.

3. (Eng. Hist.) A member of the Conservative party.

-- Webster's unabridged 1913