independent-minded.

Willing to form judgments without automatically following others.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• independent-minded critic
• independent-minded student

On the page

The independent-minded critic challenged allies as readily as opponents.

Usage notes

Primary category: psychology / human behavior. Forms: Comparative more independent-minded; superlative most independent-minded when comparison is meaningful. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: character, behavior. Commonness: moderately common.