"Insurgent" Brings 10-Cent Words to Page and Screen : Department of Word Lists : Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus

We love dramatic vocabulary moments in film and fiction, like this one in Veronica Roth's Insurgent, the second novel in the Divergent series.

(We can only hope the moment will make it into the Insurgent movie, coming to theaters this week. Though, frankly, the mere existence of a movie named Insurgent is enough to get our buzzer ringing. Taking its place alongside Despicable Me 2, Minions and Maleficent, Insurgent makes 2014-2015 the vocabulary-in-film year to beat.)

"Come on, Insurgent," [Fernando] says with a wink.
"What?" I say. I take his arm and slide down the side of the truck....
"Insurgent," he says. "Noun. A person who acts in opposition to the established authority, who is not necessarily regarded as a belligerent."

Look, vocabularians! Hot teens fighting the leaders of their postapocalyptic dystopian nightmare world still care about word definitions! They're even thinking about parts of speech!

Or at least Veronica Roth is. "Do you need to give everything a name?" a character named Cara teases after Fernando defines insurgent, and we'd like to hazard a guess that if that last question were asked to Roth herself, the answer would be a resounding yes. Part of the fun of her series is her knack for picking names for her groups, making ten-cent vocabulary words unforgettable to her readers.

Whether she's naming the factions as they exist at the series opening — Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Dauntless, and Erudite — or the groups that shake things up — Divergent, Insurgent, and Allegiant — Roth uses the names to communicate each group's core values and institutional might. Which is important given Roth's preoccupation with the ways in which group-think brings power to humans but also has the power to oppress us.

Want to learn these eight cornerstone words to Roth's series? Check out our vocabulary list: