Non-Conformity and Prejudice

Conformity

Behaviour that follows the usual standards that are expected by a group or society (It's depressing how much conformity there is in such young children.)

Shrewd

Having or based on a clear understanding and good judgment of a situation, resulting in an advantage (She is a shrewd politician who wants to avoid offending the electorate unnecessarily.)

To tackle 

To try to deal with something or someone (I tackled him about his careless work.)

To delve 

To search, especially as if by digging, in order to find a thing or information (She delved into her pocket to find some change.)

Myriad

A very large number of something (A myriad of choices.)

To rebel/discriminate (preposición)

AGAINST (The people rebelled against the harsh new government/She felt she had been discriminated against because of her age.)

To conform/subscribe/adhere/stick/consent/assent (preposición)

TO (2.3 million people subscribe to this online music service/Have they assented to the terms of the contract?)

To concur/comply/chime in/fall in/fall out (preposición)

WITH (The new report concurs with previous findings/There are serious penalties for failure to comply with the regulations.)

To break away/dissent/deviate (preposición)

FROM (Anyone wishing to dissent from the motion should now raise their hand/The recent pattern of weather deviates from the norm for this time of year.)

To chime in

To interrupt or speak in a conversation, usually to agree with what has been said (Andy chimed in with his view of the situation.)

To fall in with sth

To accept and support a plan or suggestion (It seemed like a good idea so we just fell in with it.)

To fall out

To argue with someone and stop being friendly with them (He left home after falling out with his parents.)

To break away

To escape or move away from/To stop being part of sth (The dog broke away from its owner.)

To contravene

To do something that a law or rule does not allow, or to break a law or rule (The company knew its actions contravened international law.)

To give (someone) the cold shoulder

To show that one is unwilling to be friendly with (All the neighbours/neighbors gave her the cold shoulder.)

To fall in line

If a person in an organization falls in/into line, he, she, or it starts to follow the rules and behave according to expected standards of behaviour (Teachers are expected to fall in line with the new regulations.)

To crawl/go/retreat/retire into your shell

To become less interested in other people and less willing to talk and take part in social activities (The more they tried to get her to talk about her experiences, the further she retreated back into her shell.)

To go your own/separate way

When people or groups of people choose to go their own way, they decide to live or work without continuing their previous personal or business relationship (After a couple of years together, we realized we weren't really happy and decided to go our separate ways.)

To go it alone

To do something without other people (He's decided to leave the band and go it alone as a singer.)

Aloof 

Not friendly or willing to take part in things (She seemed rather aloof when in fact she was just shy.)

Keep (yourself) to yourself

To not talk to other people very much (He's a very private person - he keeps (himself) to himself.

Misfit

Someone who is not suited to a situation or who is not accepted by other people because their behaviour is strange or unusual (I didn't really know anyone at the party, so I felt like a misfit.)

Outcast

A person who has no place in their society or in a particular group, because the society or group refuses to accept them (She has spent her life trying to help the homeless and other social outcasts.)

Castaway

A person who has escaped from a ship that has sunk, and managed to get to an island or country where there are few or no other people.

To go with the flow/follow the crowd

To do what other people are doing or to agree with other people because it is the easiest thing to do (Just relax and go with the flow!)

To bring someone/something into line with someone/something

To take action so that someone or something is at the same level as someone or something else (The salaries of temporary employees ought to be brought into line with those of permanent staff.)

Crank

A person who has strange or unusual ideas and beliefs (Most people dismissed him as a crank, but his bizarre theories eventually proved to be correct.)

Reactionary

A person who is opposed to political or social change or new ideas (Reactionaries are preventing reforms.)

To be a square peg (in a round hole)

A person whose character makes them unsuitable for the job or other position they are in (He never quite fitted in when he was working here - he was always a bit of a square peg.)

Outsider

A person who is not liked or accepted as a member of a particular group, organization, or society and who feels different from those people who are accepted as members (As a child he was very much an outsider, never participating in the games other children played.)

Queer fish

A strange or eccentric person (He was such a queer fish that he would send people cards with match statistics glued inside)

Adherent

A person who strongly supports a particular person, principle, or set of ideas (She has long been an adherent of the Communist Party.)

Maladjusted

A maladjusted person, usually a child, has been raised in a way that does not prepare them well for the demands of life, which often leads to problems with behaviour in the future (A residential school for disturbed and maladjusted children.)

Dissident

A person who publicly disagrees with and criticizes their government (Political dissidents.)

Seditious

Intending to persuade other people to oppose their government (She was arrested after making a speech that the government considered to be seditious.)

Meek

Quiet, gentle, and not willing to argue or express your opinions in a forceful way (She seemed so very meek and mild.)

Compliant

Willing to do what other people want you to do (A compliant child.)

To hold out

To continue in a situation that is dangerous or difficult (They won’t be able to hold out much longer against these attacks.)

To flock

To move or come together in large numbers (Hundreds of people flocked to the football match.)

To bedeck

To decorate or cover (The room was bedecked with flowers.)

To confound

To confuse and very much surprise someone, so that they are unable to explain or deal with a situation (A man has confounded doctors by recovering after he was officially declared dead.)

To size something/someone up

To examine something or someone carefully and decide what you think about it, him, or her (Voters are still sizing up the candidates.)

Gauge

A way of judging or showing something, especially how successful or popular something is (The fact that the play is being performed on Broadway is a gauge of its success.)

Lopsided

With one side bigger, higher, etc. than the other (The desk was scratched and lopsided; a thick book had been wedged underneath its short leg.)

Surge

A sudden and great increase (An unexpected surge in electrical power caused the computer to crash.)

To put stock in sth

If you put stock in something that someone says or does, you have a high opinion of it (He's been wrong before, so I don't put much stock in what he says any more.)

To amass

To get a large amount of something, especially money or information, by collecting it over a long period (She has amassed a huge fortune from her novels.)

Hard-wired

Automatically thinking or behaving in a particular way (All humans are hard-wired for language.)

To ascribe something to something

To believe or say that something is caused by something else (To what do you ascribe your phenomenal success?)

To put sb down

To make someone feel silly or not important by criticizing them (Why did you have to put me down in front of everybody like that?)

Scapegoating

The act of blaming a person or group for something bad that has happened or that someone else has done (the scapegoating of immigrants for the country's economic problems.)

To deride

To laugh at or show no respect for someone or something, because you think they are stupid or of no value (He derided my singing as pathetic.)

Bashing

Strong criticism of a particular type of person or thing (Union-bashing)

Disdain

The feeling of not liking someone or something and thinking that they do not deserve your interest or respect ( He regards the political process with disdain.)

To flaunt

To show or make obvious something you are proud of in order to get admiration (He's got a lot of money but he doesn't flaunt it.)

Haughtiness

Unfriendly behaviour that shows you consider yourself better than other people (I hired her in spite of her haughtiness and self-importance.)

On the verge (of)

If you are on the verge of something or come to the verge of something, you are very close to experiencing it (She is on the verge of winning her fifth successive tennis tournament.)

Ingrained

(of beliefs) so firmly held that they are not likely to change (Such ingrained prejudices cannot be corrected easily.)

Apartheid

in the past in South Africa, a system under which people of different races were kept separate by law, and white people were given more political rights and educational and other advantages (He was an important leader in the struggle against the apartheid regime.)

To abrogate

To end a law, agreement, or custom formally (The treaty was abrogated in 1929.)

Constraint

Something that controls what you do by keeping you within particular limits (The constraints of politeness wouldn't allow her to say what she really thought about his cooking.)

Entrenched

Entrenched ideas are so fixed or have existed for so long that they cannot be changed (It's very difficult to change attitudes that have become so deeply entrenched over the years.)

To lock into

To prevent a person or organization from ending or changing an agreement or financial arrangement (The gas company is locked into long-term supply contracts.)

To keep up (with someone/something) 

To do whatever is necessary to stay level or equal with someone or something (He started to walk faster and the children had to run to keep up.)

To keep on at sb

To ask or tell something in a way that annoys someone (She kept on at him to get some qualifications.)

To keep sth up

To continue without stopping or changing, or to continue something without allowing it to stop or change (Keep up the good work!)

To keep to sth

To only talk about a subject (For heaven's sake let's keep to the point or we'll never reach any decisions.)

To keep sb on

To continue to employ someone (We're sorry, but we can only keep you on for another month.)

To keep (yourself) from sth

To prevent yourself from doing something (We couldn’t keep from laughing.)

To keep sb out of sth 

To avoid becoming involved in something, or to stop someone or something becoming involved in something (I prefer to keep out of arguments about money.)

To break out

To suddenly start (War broke out in 1914.)

To break down

If a system, relationship, or discussion breaks down, it fails because there is a problem or disagreement (Negotiations with management broke down.)

To break in

To interrupt when someone else is talking (As she was talking, he suddenly broke in, saying, "That's a lie.")

To break down

To be unable to control your feelings and to start to cry (When we gave her the bad news, she broke down and cried.)

To break through

To find a way of dealing with a problem or a situation that limits what you can do (She finally broke through her fear of public speaking.)

To break into something

To suddenly begin to do something (She walked quickly, occasionally breaking into a run)

To break out of sth

To do something different from what you usually do (She needed to break out of her daily routine and do something exciting.)

To break with 

To stop being part of a group or stop supporting someone (That was the year he broke with the Labour Party.)