Noun

Let him refind his inner rebel, the famous irreverent maverick , let the tiger out of the cage. — Peggy Noonan , Wall Street Journal ,

In the Senate, however, he had established himself as a bright and prickly maverick , not averse to sharp criticism of his own party, its policies, and its leaders, most especially Bill Clinton. — John Gregory Dunne , New York Review of Books ,

This, of course, is dangerous for the rest of us. With one successfully repatriated daughter, Papi might yank us all out of college and send us back. Not to mention that it's out and out creepy that Fifi, the maverick , is so changed. — Julia Alvarez , How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents ,

there's always one maverick who has to go his own way

Adjective

Occasionally nerves and veins take maverick pathways and show up in unexpected places. — Virginia Holman , Double Take ,

Later British units, deprived of the opportunity for maverick expression by a revamped chain of UN command with a different political agenda, started spouting the organization's euphemisms that sought to paint every Bosnian side the same shade of guilty grey. — Anthony Loyd , My War Gone By, I Miss It So ,

He was maverick enough, original-minded enough, however, to realize that he could do better than simply follow Murray's orders to the letter. — Simon Winchester , The Professor and the Madman ,

George Sand's maverick views on marriage scandalized 19th-century French society.