rebel

Pluralrebels

Formsrebels, rebelling, rebelled

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A person who resists an established authority, often using force or violence.

   Like a crew member who turns against the captain and seizes the ship.

   The rebel was captured and brought before the military tribunal.

   Government forces clashed with rebels in the northern provinces.

   Similarinsurgent, revolutionary, insurrectionist, dissident

   Oppositeloyalist

   Note

   Behind the word is a battle fought twice: Latin rebellis, 'waging war again', from re- 'back, again' and bellō 'I wage war'. The violence of that root still shows when rebels defy a general and split off from an army. The noun has softened a long way, though. A younger sister who comes home late and skips her chores is a rebel too, with nothing more at stake than a curfew.

2. 2
   verbintransitive

   To resist or act defiantly against an authority.

   Many citizens rebel whenever the government raises taxes too high.

   She rebelled against the traditions her family had followed for generations.

   Similarrevolt, resist, protest

   Oppositeconform, obey, submit

   Note

   The verb reached English by its own road, through Old French rebeller, and the same Latin source also gave English revel, so the two are doublets. It is intransitive, so the authority enters with against: rebel against the system, against a family's traditions. The final l doubles before an ending: rebelled, rebelling.

3. 3
   verbintransitive

   To use force to overthrow the law of the land, aiming to replace it with another form of government.

   The colonies rebelled against the empire and declared independence.

   Provinces often rebel when a regime denies them political representation.

   Similarrevolt, rise

   Oppositesubmit

   Note

   Political language keeps this use for the full break. Here the target is not a single rule but the legal order itself, attacked by force with a different government as the goal. That aim separates it from the everyday sense of defiance, where a taxpayer or a teenager can rebel without threatening the state. Like that sense, it takes against for its target and never a direct object.

4. 4
   nounhistoricalUScountable

   A citizen of the Confederate States of America, especially a Confederate soldier.

   Union pickets exchanged tobacco with the rebels camped across the river.

   The wounded rebel was treated alongside Federal soldiers in the field hospital.

   SimilarConfederate

   OppositeYankee, Federal

   Note

   An American historical term, it names a side rather than a temperament. In writing about the Civil War, a rebel is simply a Confederate, set against Union or Federal troops. Confederate is the plain synonym. Rebel keeps a trace of the general noun, the idea of rising against an established authority, so the choice between the two words can color how a passage presents the South.

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