maverick

Let him refind his inner rebel, the famous irreverent maverick, let the tiger out of the cage. —Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal, 28–29 June 2008

In the Senate, however, he had established himself as a bright and prickly maverick, not averse to sharp criticism of his own party, its policies, and its leaders, most especially Bill Clinton. —John Gregory Dunne, New York Review of Books, 13 June 2002

This, of course, is dangerous for the rest of us. With one successfully repatriated daughter, Papi might yank us all out of college and send us back. Not to mention that it's out and out creepy that Fifi, the maverick, is so changed. —Julia Alvarez, How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents, 1991

there's always one maverick who has to go his own way

Occasionally nerves and veins take maverick pathways and show up in unexpected places. —Virginia Holman, Double Take, Winter 2002

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

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

George Sand's maverick views on marriage scandalized 19th-century French society.