---

• n  a piece of wood that has been burned or is burning
• n  someone who deliberately foments trouble

• He is an unlikely firebrand: the soft-spoken son of a blacksmith who still sometimes drives a 30-year-old Peugeot.
• But when he sat down in Hanoi with PTI correspondent Kay Johnson, it was clear he is no firebrand reformer, but a loyal party man.
• As a sectarian bloodbath deepens, the best hope for holding Iraq together may lie with America's old foe, the radical firebrand cleric Moqtada Sadr.

• brand
• instigator
• provoker
• inciter
• instigant

News & Articles

---

• Jimmy McMillan Talks Stripping, Amnesia and Vietnam
  Political firebrand, walking Internet meme and long-shot mayoral candidate Jimmy McMillan has a lot more on his mind than rising rents. Yesterday, the perennial “Rent is Too Damn High” candidate was featured on Ménage à Trois radio, a local program hosted by Diana Kolsky and Murf Meyer. Throughout the 38-minute-show, Mr. McMillan waxed poetic on everything from Agent Orange to his time as a male ...
  June 22, 2013 - The New York Observer
• Obama anxiety at left wing gathering
  Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor and Democratic firebrand, stood behind a podium at the San Jose Convention Center and neatly summed up the current zeitgeist of the left.
  June 21, 2013 - CNN
• At progressive gathering, hints of anxiety about Obama
  Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor and Democratic firebrand, stood behind a podium at the San Jose Convention Center and neatly summed up the current zeitgeist of the left.
  June 21, 2013 - CNN

Quotes

---

• Dennis Hastert in USA Today
  In the summer of 1974, America did not need a philosopher-king or a warrior-prince, an aloof aristocrat or a populist firebrand,Hastert said. "We needed a healer. We needed a rock. We needed honesty and candor and courage. We needed Gerald...
• Michael Balboni in Elmira Star-Gazette
  Firebrand start. Midterm malaise. Final fizzle,said Sen. Michael Balboni, R-Nassau County.
• Linus Torvalds in VNUNet.com
  The GPLv3 is much inferior. It no longer works in the 'fairness' sense. It's purely a firebrand, and only good for the extremist policies of the FSF,Torvalds said. "That's why I think the GPLv2 is much better. It allows us all to agree to...