recusant

1. 1.

   (of Catholics) refusing to attend services of the Church of England

   Synonymsdissentient

   Similarunorthodox
2. 2.

   refusing to submit to authority

   “the recusant electors...cooperated in electing a new Senate”

   Similardisobedient

1. 1.

   someone who refuses to conform to established standards of conduct

   Synonymsnonconformist

   Broaderdissenter

   Narrowerbeatnikbohemianenfant terriblehereticmaverick

Other forms of recusant

plural

recusants·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about recusant

What does recusant mean?

recusant means "(of Catholics) refusing to attend services of the Church of England". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in recusant?

recusant has 3 syllables: re-cu-sant. The stress falls on "re".

What is another word for recusant?

Close synonyms include dissentient, nonconformist. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is recusant a common word?

recusant is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.