Iconoclast

WORD OF THE DAY

iconoclast / noun / eye-KAH-nuh-klast

Definition
1: a person who attacks settled beliefs or institutions
2: a person who destroys religious images or opposes their veneration

Examples
"David Bowie was the ultimate iconoclast, a man who took his unique vocal instrument and used it to reinvent rock music almost album to album. From otherworldly Ziggy Stardust to the ethereal Thin White Duke, Bowie played fast and loose with style and sexuality throughout a five-decade career."
— Marco della Cava, USA Today, 28 May 2022

Filmmaker Claire Denis has always been something of a quiet iconoclast in France’s clamorous avant-garde.
— Erik Morse, Vogue, 9 July 2022

Did You Know?
Iconoclast is a word that often shows up on vocabulary lists and College Board tests. How will you remember the meaning of this vocabulary-boosting term?
If you already know the word icon, you're halfway there.
An icon is a picture that represents something. The most common icons today are those little images on our computers and smartphones that represent a program or function, but in the still-recent past, the most common icons were religious images.
Icon comes from the Greek eikōn, which is from eikenai, meaning "to resemble."
Iconoclast comes to us by way of Medieval Latin from Middle Greek eikonoklastēs, which joins eikōn with a form of the word klan, meaning "to break." Iconoclast literally means "image destroyer."