Maverick

Some words are born from people, and “maverick” is one of the clearest examples. It comes from Samuel Augustus Maverick (1803–1870), a Texas lawyer, politician and landowner who, almost by accident, lent his surname to the English language.

Maverick ended up owning cattle but, by various accounts, had little interest in ranching. Unlike his neighbours, he did not brand his calves. As a result, any unbranded calf found roaming the range came to be called a “maverick” — a Maverick animal, one without an owner’s mark. Some said he left them unbranded out of neglect; others suspected it let him claim any unmarked beast as his own. Either way, the name stuck to the cattle.

From the literal unbranded calf, the word made an easy leap into metaphor. A “maverick” became a person who, like those cattle, bears no one’s brand — someone unattached to a party, a faction or the expected way of doing things. By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries it was firmly established as a term for an independent, nonconformist individual.

The word has since branded itself across politics, business and popular culture, from independent-minded senators to a famous fighter pilot’s call sign. It is a neat irony that a term meaning “one who refuses a label” should itself be one of the most recognisable labels we have — and that it all traces back to one rancher who simply didn’t reach for the branding iron.