Find the word definition

Crossword clues for subversive

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
subversive
I.adjective
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
subversive organizations
▪ The loyalty oath was intended to protect students from so-called subversive teachers.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Again, though, the Fundamental Theorem was doing its subversive work behind the scenes.
▪ But, as Marx saw long ago, free-market capitalism is quintessentially populist and inherently subversive of traditions and rituals.
▪ I do not wish to suggest that New Historians are involved in some huge subversive critical enterprise duping credulous students.
▪ I think this is genuinely subversive.
▪ Most of those words are cynical, humorous and often subversive to the established order.
▪ Plato wrote that the potentially subversive qualities of music were such that it would not be permitted in the perfect state.
▪ Reggae was what was called for, some subversive atmosphere in the place.
▪ This time the language and violence seem only frantic, not genuinely subversive or liberating.
II.noun
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ CIA agents infiltrated the group, looking for alleged subversives.
▪ Pablo Picasso was for a long time regarded as a dangerous subversive.
▪ the kidnap and torture of a suspected subversive
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ If two subversives want to meet and pass unnoticed, then do it in the smartest, most exclusive hotel in Geneva.
▪ Postimpressionist art was also taboo, especially Pablo Picasso, who was regarded as a dangerous subversive.
▪ The new openness meant that there was a marked reduction in the arrests of alleged subversives and in the closures of newspapers.
▪ The twins, at almost eleven, were clowns, especially Shaw, who was beginning a career as the family subversive.
▪ They became scapegoats for crimes committed and were widely bruited as potential subversives.
▪ Too many subversives, they said.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Subversive

Subversive \Sub*ver"sive\, a. [Cf. F. subversif.] Tending to subvert; having a tendency to overthrow and ruin.

Lying is a vice subversive of the very ends and design of conversation.
--Rogers.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
subversive

1640s, from Latin subvers-, past participle stem of subvertere (see subvert) + -ive. As a noun, attested from 1887. Related: Subversively; subversiveness.

Wiktionary
subversive

a. Intending to subvert, overturn or undermine a government or authority n. a radical supporter of political or social revolution

WordNet
subversive

adj. in opposition to a civil authority or government [syn: insurgent, seditious]

subversive

n. a radical supporter of political or social revolution [syn: revolutionist, revolutionary, subverter]

Usage examples of "subversive".

Every writer begins as a subversive, if in nothing more than the antisocial means by which he earns his keep.

The more Khan attempted to ensure the security of his domain, by showing zero tolerance for any subversive elements at work, be they religious fanatics, malcontented students, or disgruntled academics, the more bitter the opposition to his reign seemed to become.

The diagnostic project has quite simply exploded into a dreamscape ruled by libido and pulsion, and we see just how subversive literature as an art form can be: it depicts a series of events, but we sense that they are merely a cover, a facade for other, darker forces.

Kurgan thought he smelled the beginning of a conspiracy, a subversion of the status quo, and it interested him, for subversives, by definition, had secrets to hide.

I had the same idea: Set up a sort of young artistic bohemian theme park, sprinkled around in all the major cities, where young New Atlantans who were so inclined could congregate and be subversive when they were in the mood.

Al Basrah, the leading subversive in the Middle East, and he is already dead.

The resolutions of each of these two conventions denounced the action and policy of the Abolition party, as subversive of the Constitution, and revolutionary in their tendency.

That, at least, was, I was pretty sure, how an idealistic beazel like Madeline Bassett, already rendered hot under the collar by his subversive views on sunsets and Blessed Damozels, would regard it.

Our AS should have picked up that quantity of subversive dataflow within the spaceport network.

To do this we must align ourselves against subversive elements: nihilist terrorists, the Wobblies in the States, Eurocommunists in Common Europe, even the Anti-Racist League.

Uncle Herm said it was subversive and that the intent was to turn people against the Comyn!

Now, in some hidden and suppressed corner of his psyche, the character himself internalizes the full social-political implications of his resentments, and his consciousness thus contains an explicit, ideologically subversive dimension.

Even his ancestor, who still called himself Materna, carried subversive grinding of the teeth with him to the Stockturm, the windowless tower.

West and their Rousseauian respect for Third World savages all flow from this subversive goal.

For years Philip had schemed and plotted to rule Greece, organizing an army of agents and subversives in all the major cities, outwitting the likes of Demosthenes and Aischines in Athens and the most brilliant minds of Sparta, Thebes and Corinth.