Flouter

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person who openly defies or ignores rules, laws, or accepted conventions without concern for disapproval
2. Someone who brazenly flouts established norms, regulations, or expectations and refuses to observe them
3. One who deliberately disobeys or scorns rules and customs in an open, unapologetic manner

Etymology: A "flouter" is simply someone who flouts, so its history runs through the verb "flout" and the agent suffix "-er." The suffix is the older and more traveled part of the word. It descends from a Proto-Indo-European pattern that spread through Italic and Latin as "-arius," meaning someone connected with or doing a certain thing. Old English took it in as "-ere," and it stayed productive in Middle English, where it attached to all sorts of verbs to name people who performed actions. The verb "flout" is the more puzzling piece, and it is the part that gives the word its character. It came into English in the sixteenth century, and its original sense was to mock or jeer, with a suggestion of contemptuous mockery rather than the idea of simply disregarding a rule. Ideas of defiance, treating a law or convention with open scorn, developed out of that scornful sense.

Synonyms: violator, transgressor, defier, rebel

Antonyms: conformist, follower