rebel
Americannoun
-
rebels
plural
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a person who refuses allegiance to, resists, or rises in arms against the government or ruler of their country.
- Synonyms:
- insurgent, traitor, mutineer, insurrectionist
-
a person who resists any authority, control, or tradition.
verb (used without object)
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rebels,
present (3rd person singular)
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rebelled,
past participle, past
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rebel,
past participle, past
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rebelling
present participle
verb
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to resist or rise up against a government or other authority, esp by force of arms
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to dissent from an accepted moral code or convention of behaviour, dress, etc
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to show repugnance (towards)
noun
-
-
a person who rebels
-
( as modifier )
a rebel soldier
a rebel leader
-
-
a person who dissents from some accepted moral code or convention of behaviour, dress, etc
Usage
What does rebel mean? A rebel is a person who resists or defies rules or norms or rises up against the powers that be. In its more serious sense, a rebel is a revolutionary trying to overthrow a government. More generally, it means someone who breaks the rules, resists authority, or otherwise challenges the status quo by doing things in a nontraditional way, such as in fashion and other arts. As a noun, rebel is pronounced "REB-uhl."Rebel is also a verb meaning to resist or rise up against authority or tradition. As a verb, rebel is pronounced "ri-BELL."Example: Danielle refused to wear her uniform to school, fighting with the principle and urging the other girls to rebel against the policy as she did.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
rebelsimple
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rebelssimple
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have rebelperfect
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have rebelledperfect
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has rebelperfect
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has rebelledperfect
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am rebellingprogressive
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are rebellingprogressive
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is rebellingprogressive
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have been rebellingperfect progressive
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has been rebellingperfect progressive
Past
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rebelsimple
-
rebelledsimple
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had rebelperfect
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had rebelledperfect
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was rebellingprogressive
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were rebellingprogressive
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had been rebellingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of rebel
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English adjective rebel(e), from Old French rebelle, from Latin rebellis “renewing a war,” equivalent to re- re- + bell(um) “war” + -is adjective suffix; Middle English verb rebelle(n), from Old French rebeller and Latin rebellāre; noun derivative of the adjective
Explanation
When you rebel against your parents by dyeing your hair green and staying out without calling, you are acting in a way that questions both their authority and their rules about what is right and acceptable. A rebel is someone who fights authority. The story of a rebel often finds its way into books and movies. In the 1950s film "Rebel without a Cause," a teenager rebels against his parents. In the "Star Wars" movies, the Jedi rebel against the Empire. A rebel, whether the cause they are fighting for is just or not, is always the underdog. One pronunciation hint, rebel as a noun has the stress on the first syllable and as a verb on the second.
Vocabulary lists containing rebel
"Macbeth" Vocabulary from Act I
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Fighting Words: Belli and Milit
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The American Revolution - Introductory
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Here’s hoping it inspires a new generation of rebel filmmakers to take the wheel.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 2026
It ruled "the temporary suspension" of bombings of rebel camps when there is intelligence information or other alerts about "the possible presence of children and adolescents."
From Barron's ● Sep. 3, 2026
George Washington and the Continental Congress hoped to sever French-speaking eastern Quebec from the rest of British Canada and bring it into the war as a 14th rebel colony.
From Salon ● Aug. 31, 2026
In late June, the rebel authorities declared their zones Ebola-free.
From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2026
We stood in confusion; and might have continued in that way for longer, had not a door thrown itself open, and a rebel appeared before us.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson
The rebels seized control of the strategic Red Sea port city of Mocha on Thursday.
From Barron's ● Sep. 11, 2026
Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province and one of DR Congo's most crowded hillside cities, was captured by M23 rebels in February last year.
From BBC ● Sep. 10, 2026
The rebels are also pressing their broad offensive along frontlines on the western Red Sea coast in a bid to advance towards the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the mouth of the Red Sea.
From Barron's ● Sep. 8, 2026
U.S. oil prices reached their highest levels since the beginning of June on Tuesday after Saudi Arabia announced that a wave of attacks by Houthi rebels hit oil facilities.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 8, 2026
In the end, Montaigne was unable to publish The Discourse because it had already been published by Protestant rebels and condemned as seditious.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
One of the main reasons colonists rebelled against the crown was that they wanted more Indigenous land—they wanted to move farther west into North America, but the king was telling them no.
From Slate ● Jul. 3, 2026
Paraguay’s national anthem starts by stating that the people of the Americas were “oppressed for three centuries” until they rebelled.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 25, 2026
Haiti became the first independent black nation in the Americas in 1804, after enslaved people rebelled against their French masters in what was then the colony of Saint-Domingue.
From Barron's ● May 28, 2026
A sector that once rebelled against Beijing has grown into a critical tool for working around sanctions.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 4, 2026
They had quarreled with their father, and rebelled against their uncle Onela, king of Sweden.
From "Beowulf: A New Telling" by Robert Nye
Prosecutors say Mr. Mangione wrote in a notebook that he was rebelling against “the deadly, greed fueled health insurance cartel.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026
Still, it’s promising sign that people are rebelling against Flock cameras.
From Salon ● Aug. 14, 2026
Speakers promoting AI are getting booed at universities, voters are rebelling against data centers, and even AI-friendly Trump administration officials are starting to retreat as an artificial intelligence backlash gathers pace across the United States.
From Barron's ● May 19, 2026
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara told Kennedy that, as a political compromise, to keep the Joint Chiefs of Staff from rebelling, he needed 1,000.
From Slate ● Feb. 3, 2026
Lily used honey these days, rebelling against a product pretending to be maple syrup without a speck of the real thing in it.
From "It All Comes Down to This" by Karen English
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
