as in rebels
someone who tries to overthrow or undermine a governing power
They were outted as subversives and exiled from the country.
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Recent Examples of subversives
Loners lashing out America has had genuine subversives and left-wing terror networks in the past.
—
Michelle Goldberg, Mercury News, 27 Sep. 2025
Michelle Goldberg, Mercury News, 27 Sep. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for subversives
Noun
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By providing only air cover for the rebels, our intervention left the situation on the ground to the local competing forces, tribes and militias, which were divided then and remain divided to this day.—
Thomas L. Friedman,
Mercury News,
6 Jan. 2026
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He's accused of running a network that partnered with violent groups including Mexico’s Sinaloa and Zetas cartels, Colombian FARC rebels and Venezuela's Tren de Aragua gang.—
Kathryn Palmer,
USA Today,
5 Jan. 2026
Noun
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Syria’s al-Assad went down after Israel gutted Lebanese Hezbollah, following which Turkish aided and directed insurgents representing a minority of the country marched into Damascus.—
Eliot A. Cohen,
The Atlantic,
4 Jan. 2026
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The failing economy would accomplish what [Cowley] and his fellow literary insurgents had been unable to.—
Vince Passaro,
Harpers Magazine,
30 Dec. 2025
Noun
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Parts of the movie were adapted from the novel Vineland, and some of the radical groups and revolutionaries were loosely inspired by real-life movements from the 1960s and 1970s.—
Emily Blackwood,
PEOPLE,
21 Dec. 2025
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Sometimes revolutionaries come on the scene, guiding how mathematicians think about a particular field for generations.—
Jordana Cepelewicz,
Quanta Magazine,
18 Dec. 2025
Noun
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When the violence fails to stop after the formal Purge ends, two families must band together to escape the anarchists by crossing into Mexico, but with the United States under siege, surviving will be much more difficult than just making it through one deadly night.—
Declan Gallagher,
Entertainment Weekly,
26 Dec. 2025
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The press has cast stones at One Battle After Another for its $140 million production cost, saying a car chase movie about anarchists should never have cost that much.—
Anthony D'Alessandro,
Deadline,
28 Oct. 2025
Noun
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Twenty-three stars will try to deduce who the traitors are among them.—
Brendan Le,
PEOPLE,
9 Jan. 2026
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The J6ers were not insurrectionists, traitors, and miscreants but patriots, heroes, and innocents.—
Jamie Thompson,
The Atlantic,
6 Jan. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Subversives.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/subversives. Accessed 15 Jan. 2026.
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