Meaning of rebel in English

rebel

noun [ C ]

/ˈreb.əl/ uk

/ˈreb.əl/

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a person who is opposed to the political system in their country and tries to change it using force :

The rebels took over the capital and set up a new government.

rebel troops/fighters

a person who does not like rules or authority, and shows this by behaving differently from most people in society:

He was a rebel when he was a teenager and dyed his hair pink.

More examplesFewer examples

The rebel troops have launched a coordinated attack on government soldiers.
A devastating attack was launched on the rebel stronghold.
The rebels are on the point of surrender.
The army recaptured the town from the rebels.
The UN forces have a numerical superiority over the rebels.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Activism & pressure groups

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Taking action against people in power

Freedom to act

rebel

verb [ I ]

/rɪˈbel/ uk

/rɪˈbel/

-ll-

to fight against the government:

The people rebelled against the harsh new government.

to refuse to obey rules or people in authority:

Jacob rebelled against his parents' plans for him and left school at the age of 16.

If you are too strict with teenagers, they often rebel.

to react against a feeling, action, plan, etc.:

My poor sick stomach rebelled at the idea of any more food.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Taking action against people in power

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You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

Refusing & rejecting

(Definition of rebel from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

rebel | Intermediate English

rebel

noun [ C ]

/ˈreb·əl/

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a person who refuses to accept the government’s power and uses force to oppose it, or a person who opposes authority and thinks or behaves differently:

The government tried to set up talks with the rebels.

Though he dressed unusually, he never meant to be a rebel.

US history

Soldiers fighting for the southern states in the American Civil War were called rebels.

rebel

verb [ I ] us

/rəˈbel/ -ll-

Children often rebel against being forced to eat certain foods.

(Definition of rebel from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of rebel

rebel

And we were riding around with the rebels for a while, and then we were walking on the street.

From NPR

They were little boys when the rebels came into their village.

From Chicago Tribune

A good deal of improvement was made after 1972 when women rebelled against their lower pay and lower status.

From Huffington Post

Now they haven't only rebelled, they are fighting to the death without fear.

From Foreign Policy

But consumers -- as patients and as voters -- rebelled against a system that seemed to put cutting costs ahead of providing care.

From Dallas Morning News

There aren't any other rebel soldiers around, even a few?

From A.V. Club

Their argument is cut short when they arrive at a badly rebel damaged transport.

From New York Daily News

They have accused one another of backing rebel groups on their sides of the border.

From Reuters

The rebels made a strong stand, destroying dozens of tanks.

From Voice of America

The rebels were never driven out, though, but held on to part of the town.

From The New York Review of Books

They actually rebel only when the religious persecution reached a level they could no longer tolerate.

From Huffington Post

Rebel forces first captured but then lost control of the crossing in heavy fighting.

From CNN

But as it turns out, only 4,000 documents were burned by the rebels.

From CNN

The cave had been a rebel position at one point.

From TIME

He said the small group of rebels were in the village to apprehend a suspected shabih, but things didn't go as planned.

From TIME

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

Collocations with rebel

rebel

These are words often used in combination with rebel.

Click on a collocation to see more examples of it.

armed rebel

The fact that both the armed government troops and armed rebel movements repeatedly take revenge upon the civilian population is a scandal which has lasted for too long.

From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English

rebel army

The rebel army was on the point of defeat only a few months ago and was almost wiped out.

From the

Hansard archive

Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0

rebel commander

He described the rebel commander as a very bad subject, and wrote that he and other prisoners were treated poorly in the camp.

From

Wikipedia

This example is from Wikipedia and may be reused under a CC BY-SA license.

See all collocations with rebel

What is the pronunciation of rebel?

Translations of rebel

in Chinese (Traditional)

（試圖武裝推翻國家政治制度的）反抗者，造反者, （對抗權威或社會的）叛逆者, 武力反抗…

Meaning of rebel in English

rebel | Intermediate English

rebel

Examples of rebel

Collocations with rebel

rebel

Translations of rebel

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