|
In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed... No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people. Preface to 1828 Dictionary
|
MU'TINY, n. [L. muto, to change.] An insurrection of soldiers or seamen against the authority of their commanders; open resistance of officers or opposition to their authority. A mutiny is properly the act of numbers, but by statutes and orders for governing the army and navy in different countries, the acts which constitute mutiny are multiplied and defined; and acts of individuals, amounting to a resistance of the authority or lawful commands of officers, are declared to be mutiny. Any attempt to excite opposition to lawful authority, or any act of contempt towards officers, or disobedience of commands, is by the British mutiny act declared to be mutiny. Any concealment of mutinous acts, or neglect to attempt a suppression of them, is declared also to be mutiny.
[Note-In good authors who lived a century ago, mutiny and mutinous were applied to insurrection and sedition in civil society. But I believe these words are now applied exclusively to soldiers and seamen.]
MU'TINY, v.i. To rise against lawful authority in military and naval service; to excite or attempt to excite opposition to the lawful commands of military and naval officers; to commit some act which tends to bring the authority of officers into contempt, or in any way to promote insubordination.
Insurrection against constituted authority,
particularly military or naval authority; concerted revolt against
the rules of discipline or the lawful commands of a superior officer;
hence, generally, forcible resistance to rightful authority;
insubordination.
In every mutiny against the discipline of the college, he was the ringleader. Macaulay. Violent commotion; tumult; strife.
[Obs.]
To raise a mutiny betwixt yourselves. Shak. Mutiny act (Law), an English statute reënacted annually to punish mutiny and desertion. Wharton. Syn. -- See Insurrection. To rise against, or
refuse to obey, lawful authority in military or naval service] to
excite, or to be guilty of, mutiny or mutinous conduct; to revolt
against one's superior officer, or any rightful authority.
To fall into strife; to quarrel.
[Obs.] Shak. | ||||||||