rebel
Does the rebel rebel against the rules?
The sentence asks whether the insurgent person is defying the established rules.
Meanings
a person who resists or rises up against authority, control, or convention
- The rebels seized the radio station first.
- Even as a child, she was a rebel.
to resist, defy, or rise up against authority
- Teenagers naturally rebel against their parents.
- The provinces rebelled against the imperial tax.
Word origin
From Latin rebellis ('insurgent, making war again'), formed from re- ('again') + bellum ('war'). Originally a Latin adjective describing peoples who had been conquered but rose up again in revolt. The verb-noun stress alternation follows the trochaic noun rule.
Fun fact
The Latin bellum ('war') is preserved across English vocabulary in 'rebel' (war again), 'belligerent' (waging war), 'antebellum' (before the war — the American Civil War, in US usage), and 'casus belli' (cause of war). Plus 'rebellion', 'revolt', and the related 'duel' all come from the same general region of Latin warfare vocabulary.