iconoclast
eye-KON-uh-klastnounMeaning a person who attacks cherished beliefs or traditions
Memory hook ICON-O-CLAST: breaks the town’s ICONS. While the whole town bows to the old statue, Lila holds up a sign asking why, and says the town’s favorite traditions are silly; she is an iconoclast.
The young chef was an iconoclast who served dessert first and breakfast for dinner.
In context In a field that treated tradition as sacred, the scientist was an iconoclast, publicly questioning ideas her own teachers had called beyond doubt.
Similar rebel, nonconformist, radical, dissenter
Opposite conformist, traditionalist, follower
From Greek eikon (image) + klastes (breaker): it first named people who broke religious images.