recusant
Refuses official compliance
A recusant refuses to submit to an authority or comply with a regulation.
The word appears most often in historical contexts, particularly for English Catholics who refused to attend Church of England services in the 16th and 17th centuries: recusant families faced heavy fines.
More broadly, any dissenter or nonconformist: a recusant voice on the committee.
Papal church adherent
- JesuitCatholic religious order member
- priestOne who performs sacraments
- MassCatholic worship service
- sacramentSacred ritual conveying grace
Eucharist · confession · rosary · vestments · chapel · clandestine · hidden · persecution
Rejects prevailing social standards
- dissenterOpponent of orthodoxy
- resistantWithstanding external forces
- unyieldingRefusing to give way
- intransigentRefusing to compromise
contumacious · disobedient · recalcitrant · obstinate · stubborn · uncooperative · willful · adamant
Acceptable in quality
- penaltyPunishment for wrongdoing
- forfeitLose through violation
- prosecutionPursuing legal charges
- statuteEnacted written rule
Elizabethan · penal · treason · oath · allegiance · conformity · attendance · Anglican
Concealed from authorities
- undergroundBelow ground or countercultural
- secretConcealed information
- hiddenKept out of sight
- harboringConcealing or protecting someone
concealment · smuggling · network · evasion · defiance · subversion · sedition · loyalty
Catholic
Papal church adherent
sacrament · Eucharist · confession · rosary · vestments · chapel · clandestine · hidden · persecution · martyr
nonconformist
Rejects prevailing social standards
- dissenterOpponent of orthodoxy
- resistantWithstanding external forces
- unyieldingRefusing to give way
intransigent · contumacious · disobedient · recalcitrant · obstinate · stubborn · uncooperative · willful · adamant · obdurate
fine
Acceptable in quality
- penaltyPunishment for wrongdoing
- forfeitLose through violation
- prosecutionPursuing legal charges
statute · Elizabethan · penal · treason · oath · allegiance · conformity · attendance · Anglican · Church
clandestine
Concealed from authorities
- undergroundBelow ground or countercultural
- secretConcealed information
- hiddenKept out of sight
harboring · concealment · smuggling · network · evasion · defiance · subversion · sedition · loyalty · allegiance
conviction
Firmly held belief
doctrine · creed · dissent · objector · refusal · moral · ethics · scruples · steadfastness · devotion
- resistersobjector, resister, refusenik, conscientious objector, holdout
- dissidentsdissident, dissidents, dissenter, rebel, Sakharov
- heresyheretic, heretical, heretics, apostasy, apostate
- nonbelieversatheist, atheists, agnostic, agnostics, nonbeliever
- hereticsheretic, Gnostics, Marcellus, apostate, schismatic
recusantconformist
One following accepted norms
obedient · compliant · submissive · acquiescent · tractable
recusantconformist
One following accepted norms
Anglican · communicant · churchgoer · orthodox · observant