REBELLION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does rebellion mean? 

• REBELLION (noun)
  The noun REBELLION has 2 senses:

1. refusal to accept some authority or code or convention

2. organized opposition to authority; a conflict in which one faction tries to wrest control from another

  Familiarity information: REBELLION used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• REBELLION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Refusal to accept some authority or code or convention

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Context example:

his body was in rebellion against fatigue

Hypernyms ("rebellion" is a kind of...):

resistance (group action in opposition to those in power)

Derivation:

rebel (break with established customs)

rebellious (discontented as toward authority)

rebellious (resisting control or authority)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Organized opposition to authority; a conflict in which one faction tries to wrest control from another

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

insurrection; rebellion; revolt; rising; uprising

Hypernyms ("rebellion" is a kind of...):

battle; conflict; struggle (an open clash between two opposing groups (or individuals))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "rebellion"):

insurgence; insurgency (an organized rebellion aimed at overthrowing a constituted government through the use of subversion and armed conflict)

intifada; intifadah (an uprising by Palestinian Arabs (in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank) against Israel in the late 1980s and again in 2000)

mutiny (open rebellion against constituted authority (especially by seamen or soldiers against their officers))

Instance hyponyms:

Great Revolt; Peasant's Revolt (a widespread rebellion in 1381 against poll taxes and other inequities that oppressed the poorer people of England; suppressed by Richard II)

Indian Mutiny; Sepoy Mutiny (discontent with British administration in India led to numerous mutinies in 1857 and 1858; the revolt was put down after several battles and sieges (notably the siege at Lucknow))

Derivation:

rebel (take part in a rebellion; renounce a former allegiance)

rebellious (discontented as toward authority)

rebellious (participating in organized resistance to a constituted government)

 Context examples 

Yet I knew all the time, if I yielded now, I should not the less be made to repent, some day, of my former rebellion.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The people so highly resented this law, that our histories tell us, there have been six rebellions raised on that account; wherein one emperor lost his life, and another his crown.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

We talked for hours over single stanzas, and I found him reading into them a wail of regret and a rebellion which, for the life of me, I could not discover myself.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Mrs. Crupp broke out into rebellion on my first bashful hint in reference to the cooking of the fish and joint, and said, with a dignified sense of injury, No!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Then patchwork or towels appeared, and Amy sewed with outward meekness and inward rebellion till dusk, when she was allowed to amuse herself as she liked till teatime.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

If any town should engage in rebellion or mutiny, fall into violent factions, or refuse to pay the usual tribute, the king has two methods of reducing them to obedience.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I, in my stiff- necked rebellion, almost cursed the dispensation: instead of bending to the decree, I defied it.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

They were awed by what they had already seen of Wolf Larsen’s character, while the tale of woe they speedily heard in the forecastle took the last bit of rebellion out of them.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

A sad eclipse of the serene soul, a sharp struggle of the young life with death, but both were mercifully brief, and then the natural rebellion over, the old peace returned more beautiful than ever.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

And this invention would certainly have taken place, to the great ease as well as health of the subject, if the women, in conjunction with the vulgar and illiterate, had not threatened to raise a rebellion unless they might be allowed the liberty to speak with their tongues, after the manner of their forefathers; such constant irreconcilable enemies to science are the common people.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)