subversive
/səbˈvəːsɪv
/adjective
Seeking or intended to subvert an established system or institution: subversive literature...
- Over 60 of its members, including its leader, were arrested and accused of espionage, subversive activities and other crimes.
- He has even banned subversive activities such as opera, ballet and the circus.
- Thus we have the makings of a quite subversive literary tradition that seeks to undermine the tightly controlled world of the urban elites.
Synonyms
disruptive, troublemaking, inflammatory, insurgent, insurrectionary, insurrectionist, rabble-rousing;
seditious, revolutionary, treasonous, treacherous, mutinous, rebellious, rebel, renegade, unpatriotic, dissident, disloyal, perfidious, insubordinate, underground, undermining, corrupting, discrediting, destructive, harmful
noun
A subversive person: the government claimed we were subversives or terrorists...
- By now known as a subversive and revolutionary, Marx was expelled from Paris, at the request of the Prussian authorities.
- Gathering such information about the terrorists can be daunting, given the desire of most subversives to keep the organization small, stealthy, and secret.
- By the term subversives they mean trade unionists, socialists and other campaigners.
Synonyms
troublemaker, dissident, agitator, revolutionary, revolutionist, insurgent, insurrectionist, insurrectionary, renegade, rebel, mutineer, traitor
Derivatives
subversively
/ adverb ...- So now we knew how to be professional but we also remembered how to be subversive, subversively female, subversively feminine.
- Others, as conductors on the Underground Railroad, were more directly and subversively involved in securing freedom for slaves.
- These voting procedures could subversively affect the outcome of the race in Minnesota.
subversiveness
- Aggressive linguistic subversiveness, which used to be his hallmark, has dwindled into charm; sheer amazement has become indistinct bemusement.
- Such tactics were even praised by the Daily Telegraph recently as offering ‘an honest subversiveness which a conservative newspaper can admire’.
- Playing Lucy Collins, the troubled daughter of the neighbourhood's petit bourgeois family, she constantly bristled with an insolent ennui and a mild subversiveness.
Origin
Mid 17th century: from medieval Latin subversivus, from the verb subvertere (see subvert).