Hi,

Please take a look at the sentence below.

This book challenges the conventional definition of worship.

Here, the word 'definition' seems to be preceded by 'the' because it is not just any definition but a definition of the word 'worship'.

If I replace the words 'conventional definition' with 'freedom', it seems to be OK without any article. I do admit that it seems that 'definition' is countable and 'freedom' is variable in their grammartical nature.

This book challenges freedom of worship  

Why some nouns can do away with the articles when they are in almost the same sentential structure? The first sentence  requires an article, whereas the second one can do away with it. Why is that?   

Is it that I think what Mr. M seems to have said in another thread (in what seems to be a similar line of question) that semantic meaning of a word is more important than the context or the intent of a writer?