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subversive Definition

sub·ver·sive (-siv)

adjective

tending or seeking to subvert, overthrow, or destroy (an established government, institution, belief, etc.)

Etymology: ML subversivus < L subversus, pp. of subvertere: see subvert

noun

a person regarded as subversive

subversive Related Forms
sub·ver′·sively adverb sub·ver′·sive·ness noun
subversive Synonyms

subversive

modif.

seditious, treasonous, underground, insurgent; see rebellious 2.

subversive Usage Examples

Adjective modifier

  • dangerous: People who don't know the meanings of words aren't just fools, they're dangerous subversives.
  • communist: On 20th February McCarthy made a six hour speech on the Senate floor about how the Democratic administration had been infiltrated by communist subversives.

Adjective complement with noun phrase

  • find: The British Censor found this film so subversive that he banned it for nineteen years.

Modifies a noun

  • propaganda: He wages this struggle using all means: sabotage, subversive propaganda, arson, murder.
  • humor: Andrew Maxwell: ' Round Twilight Cheek, social commentary and subversive humor from Channel 4's King of Comedy.
  • act: Any journalist who engages in any defined subversive act, for political or commercial reasons, must be held to account.
  • element: There was however a subversive element to the Gothic.
  • activity: By 1794, they were outlawed due to their growing subversive activity.
  • organization: Attempts were made to officially brand the union as a " subversive organization " and to deport UE leader James Matles.

Modifying Another Word

  • politically: Repression Not every local organization or post-colonial immigrant organization has a politically subversive language.
  • potentially: The latent political charge of anti-discrimination legislation is laid bare in all its potentially subversive colors.
  • deeply: Ostensibly, this is a deeply subversive film: its hero is a suicide bomber.
  • truly: This is a relatively new model and one with a truly subversive character.
  • slightly: The last poem, LOCAL APATHY, has an endearing quality of slightly subversive collusion with the landscape's secret dreams.
  • quite: The questions are mostly straightforward, but the answers are quite subversive.

Used with adjective complement

  • consider: Some totalitarian country could easily block out material that might be considered subversive.
  • become: They are becoming increasingly subversive in how they target, particularly young people, with their evil message.
  • seem: Seen today, Jack and Susie seem genuinely subversive.
  • deem: At the same time the police in rural areas kept a close watch on dissidents and were prepared to remove those it deemed subversive.

Preposition: in

  • sense: These little poems are not subversive in any obvious sense.
subversive Quotes

Whatever isfunny issubversive, every joke isultimatelya custard pie† A dirty joke is not, of course, a serious attack uponmorality, but it is a sort of mental rebellion, a momentary wish that things were otherwise.

—Orwell, George pseudonym of  Eric Arthur Blair

If sex and creativity are often seen by dictators as subversive activities, it's because they lead to the knowledge that you own your own body (and with it your own voice), and that's the most revolutionary insight of all.

—Jong, Erica ne¤  e Mann