as in traitors
a person who abandons a cause or organization usually without right
we had orders to find and capture the deserters before they could reveal our location
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Recent Examples of deserters
Harry Truman granted amnesty to certain World War II deserters, while Jimmy Carter granted pardons to hundreds of thousands of individuals who dodged the draft during the Vietnam War.
—
Stewart Ulrich, The Conversation, 15 Dec. 2025
More important, though, is the fact that the judge who posited that hordes of deserters could follow Vovchenko’s example seems to be overstepping his role.
—Air Mail, 25 Oct. 2025
Language purists like to remind anyone who will listen that decimation actually means the slaughter of one in ten people, and was the military punishment wielded by the Roman army against deserters and mutineers.
—Literary Hub, 20 Oct. 2025
Despite opposition to busing, particularly among White families who comprised much of Louisville's Catholic population, Archbishop McDonough vowed in 1974 that his schools would not become the home of public school deserters.
—Krista Johnson, Louisville Courier Journal, 4 Sep. 2025
Stewart Ulrich, The Conversation, 15 Dec. 2025
More important, though, is the fact that the judge who posited that hordes of deserters could follow Vovchenko’s example seems to be overstepping his role.
—Air Mail, 25 Oct. 2025
Language purists like to remind anyone who will listen that decimation actually means the slaughter of one in ten people, and was the military punishment wielded by the Roman army against deserters and mutineers.
—Literary Hub, 20 Oct. 2025
Despite opposition to busing, particularly among White families who comprised much of Louisville's Catholic population, Archbishop McDonough vowed in 1974 that his schools would not become the home of public school deserters.
—Krista Johnson, Louisville Courier Journal, 4 Sep. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for deserters
Noun
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It’s populated by craven, cowardly traitors.—
Voice of the People,
New York Daily News,
25 Mar. 2026
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Having been labeled traitors in Iran and following reports that some of their families had been threatened, the players then sang before their other two matches.—
Don Riddell,
CNN Money,
17 Mar. 2026
Noun
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Conflict has broken out in the country since 2013 after mostly Muslim rebels seized power and forced then President François Bozizé to quit.—
ABC News,
ABC News,
30 Mar. 2026
-
The mixed movements followed a whirlwind of action in the war over the weekend, including an entry into the fighting by Houthi rebels in Yemen.—
Stan Choe,
Fortune,
30 Mar. 2026
Noun
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The men who once styled themselves renegades increasingly resembled every other hyper-online young guy—gaming, memeing, trading.—
Clara Molot,
Vanity Fair,
17 Mar. 2026
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But in order to remain a meaningful platform for creative renegades, the festival needs to also take risks.—
Shirley Li,
The Atlantic,
11 Feb. 2026
Noun
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To Alfredo De Avila, of the Oakland Center for Third World Organizing, the UFW’s claims that Communist insurgents are plotting against Chavez and his union highlight how far the UFW has fallen.—
Marcos Breton,
Sacbee.com,
24 Mar. 2026
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Bakri is more brittle in Farah Nabulsi’s The Teacher as Basem, a Palestinian teacher in the West Bank whose support for insurgents grows after his own son dies in prison and as Israeli settlers brutalize his neighborhood.—
Roxana Hadadi,
Vulture,
24 Mar. 2026
Noun
-
Drawing at least in part on information from Chalker’s defectors, the Pentagon constructed life-size underground facsimiles of Iranian nuclear facilities where the scientists had worked, attempting to duplicate even the thickness of the walls.—
David D. Kirkpatrick,
New Yorker,
30 Mar. 2026
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Parties have mostly voted in blocks on major issues in recent years, with small numbers of defectors increasingly rare.—
Alex Derosier,
Twin Cities,
27 Mar. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Deserters.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/deserters. Accessed 6 Apr. 2026.
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