# maverick

Pronunciation: say "MAV-uh-rik" /ˈmævəɹɪk/

## Noun

1. An unconventional person who does not follow the rules, or one who creates or uses controversial, unorthodox ideas or practices.
   - Simple: A person who thinks and acts in their own way and does not follow the usual rules.
   - _She was a maverick on the city council, voting with neither party on most issues._
   - _The tech industry loves to celebrate mavericks who ignore conventional wisdom and build companies their own way._
3. An animal on the open range, such as a calf, that carries no owner's brand.
   - Simple: An animal on open grazing land, often a calf, that has no owner's mark on it.
   - _The cowhands rounded up a dozen mavericks along the creek and drove them to the corral._
   - _Each spring the ranchers argued over who had the right to brand a maverick found on shared land._

## Adjective

2. Independent in thought or action, rather than following what others think or do.
   - Simple: Thinking or acting in an independent way, without just following others.
   - _The senator's maverick streak made her hard for party leaders to control._
   - _A maverick director, he shot the whole film on his phone._
4. Of cattle, carrying no owner's brand.
   - Simple: Describing cattle that have no owner's mark on them.
   - _Ranchers once competed to claim the maverick cattle wandering the open range._
   - _The roundup turned up forty head of maverick stock, and no one could prove who owned them._

## Verb

5. To take an unbranded animal found on the open range, or more generally to seize anything without a legal claim to it. *(US)*
   - Simple: To take an animal with no owner's mark, or to take anything that is not legally yours.
   - _The foreman warned the new hands not to maverick any calves found near the boundary fence._
   - _Old-timers said he had built his first herd by mavericking calves along the river bottoms._

## Other meanings

- (noun) In US military slang, a commissioned officer who began their career as an enlisted member; a mustang.
- (noun) Anything that has been obtained by dishonest means.
- (noun) In Texas hold 'em, a starting hand made up of a queen and a jack.

## Origin

The word takes its name from Samuel Maverick (1803–1870), a lawyer and politician in Texas who would not brand his cattle. Its poker sense, a starting hand of a queen and a jack in Texas hold 'em, may come from the theme song of Maverick, a US Western television series (1957–1962) whose hero is described in the lyrics as "livin' on jacks and queens".

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/maverick (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).