as in rebellious
given to resisting authority or another's control
several recusant senators refused to vote as commanded by the party leadership
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
as in resister
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Dissimilar Words
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of recusant
Chris Jones, chicagotribune.com, 15 July 2019
Noun
The uniform of the conformist — sports shirt, cardigan, tennis shoes — is as easily recognized as that of the recusant — dirty white T, sideburns, two days’ growth of beard.
—Chris Jones, chicagotribune.com, 15 July 2019
Recent Examples of Synonyms for recusant
Adjective
-
Silicon Valley definitely has so much of that rebellious spirit.—
Andre Byik,
USA Today,
10 Nov. 2025
-
On Tracker, Ackles portrays Russell, Colter’s charismatic and rebellious older brother, who has a similar skill set and lack of stable home life.—
Katie Mannion,
PEOPLE,
9 Nov. 2025
Noun
-
Newsom got another fix of national media attention to bolster his image as resister-in-chief to the commander-in-chief, in apparent preparation for a 2028 presidential campaign.—
Dan Walters,
Oc Register,
23 Sep. 2025
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The answer is that France at this time was attempting to heal its wartime wounds, papering over the cracks in the social fabric that had opened up during the German Occupation and positioning itself as a nation of resisters, in which collaborators had been few and aberrant.—
Richard Brody,
New Yorker,
30 July 2025
Adjective
-
Al-Sharaa led the rebel forces that toppled former Syrian President Bashar Assad last December and was named the country's interim leader in January.—
NPR,
NPR,
11 Nov. 2025
-
Warriors from more than a dozen Native nations in the trans-Appalachian West helped the redcoats engage rebel forces, as did perhaps twenty-five thousand Black fugitives from slavery.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
7 Nov. 2025
Adjective
-
Cushla’s world is full of defiant spirits, including her mother, a woman struggling with addiction who spends most of her days bound to her living room and the bottom of a bottle.—
Max Goldbart,
Deadline,
5 Nov. 2025
-
The mayor-elect was defiant in his victory speech.—
Sydney Lake,
Fortune,
5 Nov. 2025
Noun
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Language purists like to remind anyone who will listen that decimation actually means the slaughter of one in ten people, and was the military punishment wielded by the Roman army against deserters and mutineers.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
20 Oct. 2025
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Few among the bureaucratic, business, and even military elites denounced the mutineers, exposing limited support for Putin.—
ANDREI YAKOVLEV,
Foreign Affairs,
16 May 2025
Noun
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The experience served as an extreme way to learn what Everest requires of its challengers.—
Zoey Lyttle,
PEOPLE,
7 Nov. 2025
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In Orange and Osceola Counties, an area with a large population of Puerto Rican voters, DeSantis’ Democratic challenger Charlie Crist still edged out a win.—
Miami Herald,
Miami Herald,
7 Nov. 2025
Noun
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Deporting supposed gang members and Hamas supporters without due process may violate any number of statutes, but forcing oppositionists to defend these people’s rights allows the administration to paint them as defending their ideas.—
Garry Kasparov,
The Atlantic,
17 Apr. 2025
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Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) is a Sunni Islamist umbrella group of oppositionist forces with ideological and organizational roots in al-Qaeda.—
Joseph Epstein,
Newsweek,
10 Dec. 2024
Noun
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That revelation prodded insurgents in British possessions from Ireland to Sierra Leone to take to the streets to assert their own ambitions for economic and political autonomy over the decades to come.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
7 Nov. 2025
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Ilana presents herself as a stout-hearted reformer who’s being targeted by fascistic insurgents but is secretly evil enough to engineer an apocalypse.—
Matt Zoller Seitz,
Vulture,
31 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Recusant.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/recusant. Accessed 11 Nov. 2025.
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