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Definition of maverick
1 : an unbranded range animal; especially : a motherless calf
2 : an independent individual who does not go along with a group or party
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Examples of maverick in a Sentence
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
Recent Examples of maverick from the Web
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What emerges is a portrait not just of a creative maverick, but also of an artist who constantly negotiated her womanhood and strove to tell the stories of ordinary black women.
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Style mavericks like Shia LaBeouf, Jared Leto (way back in 2006 even), and world's most snuggly monarch Prince George have become unofficial brand ambassadors for Crocs.
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But some just can’t bring themselves to wear the fitted suits or the fake smiles, and these are the ones Cube gravitates toward, the mavericks most comfortable on the blacktop despite its cracks.
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But then, as now, there were five stars that were mavericks or wild cards.
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In France this year, in the first round of voting among eleven candidates, leftwing maverick Jean-Luc Mélenchon was far ahead among the 18-to-24 year olds with 30 percent of their vote.
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That arrived almost immediately, with the Mavericks aligning themselves with the New York Islanders and the AHL’s Bridgeport Sound Tigers only a few months later, an agreement that stood in place for the past two seasons.
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Qatar has long acted as a maverick, leveraging its huge wealth from natural gas exports to punch above its weight on the global scene.
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Scott at LGM refers us to a 2015 NYT profile in which Mitch McConnell, of all people, is positioned as a civil-rights maverick within the Republican Party.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'maverick.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Did You Know?
When a client gave Samuel A. Maverick 400 cattle to settle a $1,200 debt, the 19th-century south Texas lawyer had no use for them, so he left the cattle unbranded and allowed them to roam freely (supposedly under the supervision of one of his employees). Neighboring stockmen recognized their opportunity and seized it, branding and herding the stray cattle as their own. Maverick eventually recognized the folly of the situation and sold what was left of his depleted herd, but not before his name became synonymous with such unbranded livestock. By the end of the 19th century, the term maverick was being used to refer to individuals who prefer to blaze their own trails.
Origin and Etymology of maverick
Samuel A. Maverick †1870 American pioneer who did not brand his calves
Examples of maverick in a Sentence
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.
Recent Examples of maverick from the Web
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Amazon.com Inc.’s planned $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods Market Inc. unites two maverick businessmen who will now have to blend very distinct approaches to make the deal a success.
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Marty McFly, a 17-year-old high school student, is accidentally sent 30 years into the past in a time-traveling DeLorean invented by his close friend, the maverick scientist Doc Brown.
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NEW WORLD ORDER: -- Senate Democrats, along with at least one maverick Republican, are attempting to push back on Trump’s warming of relations with Saudi Arabia, in particular regarding an arms deal to the country.
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Then, an unidentified member in the audience at my talk about Uber at the university’s Rotman School of Management challenged my assertion that the maverick San Francisco startup had changed anything.
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Leave it to Mr. Gordon, a maverick performer since his experiments with Judson Dance Theater in the 1960s, to reinvigorate the art of archiving.
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For Davenport, her candidacy was about bringing a maverick voice to a school board that has voted 7-0 on 443 out of 444 board votes in the last six years, her campaign’s analysis shows.
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Andrey Zvyagintsev's Leviathan (2014) is one of the great films to have debuted at Cannes this decade, so this family drama from the maverick Russian director is a must-see.
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For all the talk about populism and his maverick appeal, the heart and soul of Trump's survival has been the power of partisanship.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'maverick.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Origin and Etymology of maverick
see 1maverick
MAVERICK Defined for English Language Learners
maverick
playDefinition of maverick for English Language Learners
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: a person who refuses to follow the customs or rules of a group
Learn More about maverick
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Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for maverick Spanish Central: Translation of maverick Nglish: Translation of maverick for Spanish speakers Britannica English: Translation of maverick for Arabic speakers
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