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Discuss Email this Feedback RSS/XML Permalink A.Word.A.Day--recusant recusant (REK-yu-zant, ri-KYOO-) adjective Refusing to submit to authority; dissenting. noun 1. One who refuses to obey authority. 2. One of the Roman Catholics during 16th and 18th century who refused to attend services of the Church of England and were punished for it. [From Latin recusant-, stem of recusans, present participle of recusare (to recuse or object).] Today's word in Visual Thesaurus. "The 'recusant Republican senators' who defied their party and 'tipped the balance in favor of Johnson' won praise from Rehnquist for putting principle above politics." Gaylord Shaw; Portrait of a Trial, Newsday (New York); Jan 5, 1999. This week's theme: words to describe people. X-Bonus We must not be frightened nor cajoled into accepting evil as deliverance from evil. We must go on struggling to be human, though monsters of abstractions police and threaten us. -Robert Hayden, poet and educator (1913-1980)

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