maverick
Part of speech: adj
noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: card-games
government
military
poker
politics
war
Etymology: Named after Texan lawyer and politician Samuel Maverick (1803–1870), who refused to brand his cattle. For probable origin and meaning, see Maverick.
The poker noun sense (“a queen and a jack as a starting hand in Texas hold ’em”) may be from the theme song of the US Western television series Maverick (1957–1962), which says of the eponymous protagonist that “[g]amblin’ is his game” and that he is “livin’ on jacks and queens”.
Inflected forms:
form: more maverick
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: most maverick
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: mavericks
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: mavericks
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: mavericking
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: mavericked
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: mavericked
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: Unbranded.
pos: adj
examples: Occasionally some young men who have no cattle of their own will take part in these expeditions, or they will give their services by the year to receive a pro rata of all the maverick cattle that may be found. [Quoted from The Texas New Yorker, pages 110–111.]
But I would rather have maverick cattle, they are more accustomed to range conditions. My cattle from the registered herd have not done too well.
Attempts to regulate the distribution of maverick cattle throughout the 1880s affected particularly the access of cowboys to mavericks.
gloss: Showing independence in thoughts or actions.
pos: adj
examples: He made a maverick decision.  She is such a maverick person.
A maverick person tends to be wild, unsettled, and irresponsible, often an outlaw not bound by the rules and mores of society.
John Maynard Keynes, the internationally renowned economist, was impressed by Alan [Turing]'s work, and his unorthodox style. […] It is quite likely that Keynes viewed Alan and his maverick attitude to maths research sympathetically.
As resident jester at the maverick journalism outlet The Free Press, Nellie Bowles scours the news for the absurd and hypocritical, and then skewers the best of the worst in her column, TGIF.
gloss: An unbranded range animal.
pos: noun
examples: In this distribution, care is taken to leave not only those which bear the owner's mark and brand, but his due proportion of the mavericks* that have been found upon the expedition. [footnote: *The term "maverick" is applied in this country to all animals that have neither mark nor brand upon them, and originated in this way:[…]]
Under this law 2,035 mavericks (orphan calves) were discovered and disposed of by the round-up foremen. Formerly the custom was to brand mavericks with the brand of the owner of that portion of the range where they were found. Under the new law, all mavericks are branded with the association brand, and sold at auction.
Long Bill was a graduate of the camp and trail. Luck and thrift, a cool head, and a telescopic eye for mavericks had raised him from cowboy to be a cowman.
A maverick is an unbranded calf that has been weaned and shifts for itself. The maverick then belongs to the man who finds it and brands it.
gloss: Anything dishonestly obtained.
pos: noun
tags: broadly
gloss: One who is unconventional or does not abide by rules.
pos: noun
tags: broadly
examples: Among historians he was a maverick because of his belief that history is meaningless.
As a voter, I’m a maverick, don’t belong to any party. I believe that John Doe is the best available man for county commissioner, Richard Roe for sheriff, Joe Hicks for governor—but John is a Democrat, Dick is a Republican, and Joe is—well, something else.
The relative merits of the civils and the demerits of the electricals were extolled in the following challenge: “To the A.I.E.E. [American Institute of Electrical Engineers], hereinafter referred to as the mavericks of the engineering profession.”
If representation and recruitment is an objective, self-styled mavericks like Kelly and his Queensland sidekick George Christensen have some utility.
gloss: One who creates or uses controversial or unconventional ideas or practices.
pos: noun
tags: broadly
examples: We then drift back into our old habits, glorify efficiency, and smile knowingly at the mavericks within the faculty who want the administration to take democracy seriously.
Florence Nightingale would have been perceived as a maverick during her early career, because she was prioritizing hygiene when everybody else involved in healthcare was focused on other things, such as surgery and pills.
“He was, in reality, more of a celebrity and less of an economist,” recalled the 51-year-old, who described handpicking the maverick as his finance minister because of his international reputation and “extremely attractive” skills as a public orator.
gloss: A person in the military who became an officer by going to college while on active duty as an enlisted person.
pos: noun
examples: They had been working for and with each other for a very long period and their tolerance for “mavericks” was very high, especially if these mavericks continued to get promoted.
gloss: A queen and a jack as a starting hand in Texas hold ’em.
pos: noun
tags: slang
gloss: To take an unbranded range animal.
pos: verb
tags: US
examples: The court permitted the State to prove, over defendant's objections, that Thedford met Noon Tucker and Calvery driving the yearling over to Bachelor's for delivery. Thedford inquired of Noon “if that [meaning the yearling] was one he had mavericked?”
For the capricious and uncertain favor of this the only marriageable young lady in the district, all the susceptible and unattached cowboys (of which class the population almost wholly consisted) strove together eagerly and without ceasing, mavericking right and left everything they could lay their hands on, with a running brand L I L, until, when the tenderfoot she had all along been engaged to came out and married her, she brought him great herds of L I L cattle, with which they gayly set up a ranch beneath the noses of the forlorn celibate community.
gloss: To seize without a legal claim.
pos: verb
tags: broadly
Synonyms: eccentric
free spirit
heteroclite
deviant
deviate
individualist
maverick
misfit
nonconformist
offbeat
Antonyms: dogmatist
formalist
pedant
stickler
traditionalist
Related words: black sheep
lone gunman
lone wolf
loose cannon
rebel
resister
revolutionary
rogue
scoundrel
march to the beat of a different drum
cheeky
doer
reckless
troublemaker
Derived words: maverick brand
mavericker
maverickish
maverickism
mavericky
Translations: