REBELS Synonyms: 49 Similar and Opposite Words

rebels 1 of 2

noun

plural of rebel

as in insurgents

a person who rises up against authority the rebel would not submit peacefully, even after he was captured

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rebels

2 of 2

verb

present tense third-person singular of rebel

as in revolts

to rise up against established authority the colonists rebelled in the wake of an onslaught of abuses

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of rebels

Noun

Yemen's military said the rebels targeted both the port city of Mokha on the Red Sea coast and the central province of Marib with missiles and drones, but did not provide further details. — Frank Andrews, CBS News, 11 Aug. 2026 The clash, which occurred on Monday in the Sakaba council area of Kebbi state, also left two civilians and 17 of the rebels dead, police spokesperson Bashir Usman said in a statement. — ABC News, 11 Aug. 2026 Assad secretly fled Syria the night before rebels seized Damascus, taking refuge in Moscow with his family. — Brady Knox, The Washington Examiner, 11 Aug. 2026 But in 2024, rebels led by now-President Ahmed al-Sharaa swept across Syria in a lightning offensive that lasted less than two weeks. — Kinda Makieh, USA Today, 11 Aug. 2026 The conflict in the Middle East has expanded over recent days, with tensions between Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Saudi Arabia ramping up. — Hanna Ziady, CNN Money, 10 Aug. 2026 Holden eagerly rebels against Pencey Prep, gets the boot, and flees to New York City, a place with its own vices and hazards, but without the sort of propaganda and pretense that obscure the school’s dark underside. — Literary Hub, 10 Aug. 2026 Tensions have flared in the southern Red Sea in recent weeks, with the Houthi rebels in Yemen announcing a blockade on Saudi Arabia’s ports, a key alternative export route for the kingdom’s oil. — Sara Gharaibeh, Fortune, 9 Aug. 2026 Fayed al-Noman, the information ministry’s assistant undersecretary, said the rebels fired missiles and drones, severely damaging port buildings and piers as well as commercial goods and food supplies. — Los Angeles Times, 9 Aug. 2026

Verb

Masahiro Motoki — the Oscar-winning star of Departures — plays a lord who rebels against warlord Oda Nobunaga and barricades himself inside Arioka Castle, only to face a string of unsolved murders within its walls. — Scott Roxborough, HollywoodReporter, 18 Mar. 2026 Set against the backdrop of the 1998 São Paulo World Cup between Brazil and France, Amarela follows 14-year-old Erika Oguihara (Melissa Uehara), a Japanese Brazilian sports fanatic who rebels against her family’s more Japanese cultural traditions. — Destiny Jackson, Deadline, 10 Jan. 2026 As the professor navigates retirement, the baby grows into a rambunctious child who rebels against the traditions of her fishing community. — The New Yorker, New Yorker, 6 Oct. 2025

Recent Examples of Synonyms for rebels

Noun

Assad and his brother Maher fled to Russia after insurgents marched into Damascus in December 2014.

— ABC News, ABC News, 11 Aug. 2026
Tuesday’s primaries refused to settle into one of the storylines written in the weeks after Colorado’s primaries, where insurgents in both parties wildly overperformed.

— David Weigel, semafor.com, 5 Aug. 2026

Definition of insurgents

Noun

To make matters worse, ten days later, revolutionaries stormed the Bastille.

— Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 12 Aug. 2026
Huey Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, published a statement supporting the women’s and gay liberation movements as fellow revolutionaries.

— USA Today, USA Today, 4 Aug. 2026