firebrand
Americannoun
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a piece of burning wood or other material.
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a person who kindles strife or encourages unrest; an agitator; troublemaker.
noun
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a piece of burning or glowing wood or other material
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a person who causes unrest or is very energetic
Etymology
Origin of firebrand
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Even Wall Street Journal editor-at-large Gerard Baker, hardly a left-wing firebrand, quipped that the address was so full of fictions he was beginning to doubt whether the USA men’s hockey team actually won gold.
From Salon
In a move that foreshadowed Parton’s future as a feminist firebrand of her time, she contracted a lawyer and found a room for her daughters and herself in the Marlboro Hotel in Boston.
Relatively unknown outside his own country at the time, Lee had a reputation as a firebrand who was sympathetic to socialist economic causes.
From BBC
As the original firebrands age, a new generation looks to tinker with the system, loosen its ideological strictures, and even reanimate a national compact.
He later became one of the firebrand’s most loyal lieutenants.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
