mutiny
Americannoun
verb (used without object)
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
mutinysimple
-
mutiniessimple
-
have mutiniedperfect
-
has mutiniedperfect
-
am mutinyingprogressive
-
are mutinyingprogressive
-
is mutinyingprogressive
-
have been mutinyingperfect progressive
-
has been mutinyingperfect progressive
Past
-
mutiniedsimple
-
had mutiniedperfect
-
was mutinyingprogressive
-
were mutinyingprogressive
-
had been mutinyingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of mutiny
1560–70; obsolete mutine to mutiny (< Middle French mutiner, derivative of mutin mutiny; see mutineer) + -y 3
Explanation
A mutiny is a rebellion against authority, like when sailors overthrow the captain of a ship or when a class of 8th graders refuses to dissect a frog in biology class. Mutiny comes from an old verb, mutine, which means "revolt," and a mutiny is still like a revolt. It can be a group of people, like in the famous Mutiny on the Bounty in 1789 when the crew of a British Royal Navy ship kicked the captain out so they could stay in Tahiti. (Totally worth it.) Mutiny also means "to refuse the order of the person in authority," so it doesn't always take place at sea or in the military, it can happen in a classroom and be every teacher's nightmare!
Vocabulary lists containing mutiny
The Cay
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Christopher Columbus' Diary: The First Voyage
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Refugee
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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:
Cash in circulation jumped after President Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilisation in September 2022 and during a brief mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group in June 2023.
From BBC ● Jul. 18, 2026
In the past six days, “60 Minutes,” its signature show, parted ways with three high-profile correspondents, turned over its top editorial and producing ranks and sparked a staff mutiny.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 3, 2026
Alekseyev, who had longtime links with Wagner, was detained after the mutiny and later released.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 6, 2026
Nigeria led the regional mission with the deployment of jets and troops to suppress the mutiny in Benin.
From BBC ● Dec. 9, 2025
“Your ancestor, Dog Breath, stole it in a mutiny from the real captain of the ship—my ancestor, the brave buccaneer Angel Vengador Leones!”
From "The Smartest Kid in the Universe" by Chris Grabenstein
Puckish and determined, Hockney didn’t shrink from mutinies small or large.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
Alliance shifts and mutinies occur, but leadership is hard to fake and Pipe is a born boss.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 29, 2023
On July 23, he took the Belarusian president, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, to Kronstadt, a city on an island outside St. Petersburg known for its early-20th-century history of mutinies.
From New York Times ● Aug. 5, 2023
Rights groups also warn that civilians usually bear the brunt of these mutinies.
From Washington Times ● Jul. 28, 2023
They weren’t mutinies in the sense that soldiers attacked their officers, but were more like workmen’s strikes, in which entire units refused to return to the trenches or take part in new attacks.
From "The War to End All Wars: World War I" by Russell Freedman
Peng began as a commander in the China-backed Burmese Communist Party, but he mutinied in 1989 as Chinese support stopped, breaking the Burmese Communist Party up into several armed insurgent groups.
From BBC ● Nov. 22, 2023
There was further controversy last year when members of the Spanish women's team mutinied against their coach Jorge Vilda.
From Reuters ● Aug. 31, 2023
A few years after the showdown at Worms, unpaid troops in the Habsburg Emperor’s army mutinied, then sacked Rome and the Vatican.
From Slate ● Apr. 21, 2023
About one thousand of them mutinied and refused to set sail.
From Textbooks ● Dec. 14, 2022
At the end of October, German naval crews mutinied, and within a week, revolutionary outbreaks had spread to every big German city.
From "The War to End All Wars: World War I" by Russell Freedman
On 7 December, mutinying soldiers claimed to have overthrown the Benin president.
From BBC ● Apr. 16, 2026
In parts of his interview reported by Reuters earlier this week, he said the mutinying Russian mercenaries had headed for a nuclear base in pursuit of a backpack-sized atomic weapon.
From Reuters ● Jul. 14, 2023
By the end of his reign, Roman armies in Gaul and Hispania were mutinying.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023
But because I apparently can't make it every single night without my family mutinying, I decided to take its elements and put them into a bite I can have every night.
From Salon ● Jul. 24, 2022
They were always showing Columbus discovering America, having one helluva time getting old Ferdinand and Isabella to lend him the dough to buy ships with, and then the sailors mutinying on him and all.
From "The Catcher in the Rye" by J. D. Salinger
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.
