recusant

plural recusants

1. historicalSomeone refusing to attend Church of England services, between the 16th and early 19th centuries, whether a Protestant dissident or a Roman Catholic.

   Near-synonyms: (all sometimes synonymous) Dissenter, Nonconformist, free churchman; autem cackler (archaic cant)

   Synonyms: Dissenter, Nonconformist, free churchman, autem cackler

2. Anyone refusing to submit to authority or regulation.

   Near-synonyms: refuser, defier, dissenter, objector, protester, iconoclast, maverick, nonconformist, rebel, refusenik, renegade

   Synonyms: refuser, defier, dissenter, objector, protester, iconoclast, maverick, nonconformist

1. Pertaining to a recusant or to recusancy.

   Still, to disobey a direct order in the field is no small matter in any circumstances, and especially in Sparta. The recusant captains must have known how dangerous their defiance was to them, yet they risked it.

   1981, Donald Kagan, The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition

   1 more example

   […] to set forth the commission to avenge his father’s death laid upon him by Apollo, together with the warning of the god that if he prove recusant to his duty of vengeance, the Furies of his father will blast his mind and waste his body.

   1924, Herbert Weir Smyth, “VII. Orestea. II: The Libation-Bearers”, in Aeschylean Tragedy, pages 185-186