maverick

²mav·er·ick

adj \ˈmav-rik, ˈma-və-\

Definition of MAVERICK

: characteristic of, suggestive of, or inclined to be a maverick (see ¹maverick)

Examples of MAVERICK

1. <George Sand's maverick views on marriage scandalized 19th-century French society.>
2. Occasionally nerves and veins take maverick pathways and show up in unexpected places. —Virginia Holman, Double Take,Winter 2002
3. Later British units, deprived of the opportunity for maverick expression by a revamped chain of UN command with a different political agenda, started spouting the organization's euphemisms that sought to paint every Bosnian side the same shade of guilty grey. —Anthony Loyd, My War Gone By, I Miss It So, 1999
4. He was maverick enough, original-minded enough, however, to realize that he could do better than simply follow Murray's orders to the letter. —Simon Winchester, The Professor and the Madman, 1998

Origin of MAVERICK

(see ¹maverick)

First Known Use: 1886

Related to MAVERICK

Synonyms: dissentient, dissenting, dissident, heterodox, iconoclastic, heretical, nonconformist, nonorthodox, out-there, unconventional, unorthodox

Antonyms: conforming, conformist, conventional, orthodox

Related Words: free-spirited, freethinking, nontraditional; apostate, defecting, renegade; schismatic (also schismatical), sectarian, separatist

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