Betray
Pronunciation
- Rhymes: -eɪ
Origin
From Middle English betrayen, betraien, equivalent to - + tray("to betray"), from Old French traïr ("to commit treason, betray"), from Latin trÄdere, present active infinitive of trÄdÅ ("deliver, give over", verb.). In some senses, merged with or influenced by Middle English bewraien, bewreyen ("to reveal, divulge"), see bewray. Compare also traitor, treason, tradition.
Full definition of betray
Verb
- To deliver into the hands of an enemy by treachery or fraud, in violation of trust; to give up treacherously or faithlessly; as, an officer betrayed the city.
- To prove faithless or treacherous to, as to a trust or one who trusts; to be false to; to deceive; as, to betray a person or a cause.
- To violate the confidence of, by disclosing a secret, or that which one is bound in honor not to make known.
- To disclose or discover, as something which prudence would conceal; to reveal unintentionally; to bewray.
- 2012, May 24, Nathan Rabin, Film: Reviews: Men In Black 3, Jones’ sad eyes betray a pervasive pain his purposefully spare dialogue only hints at, while the perfectly cast Brolin conveys hints of playfulness and warmth while staying true to the craggy stoicism at the character’s core.
- 1966, Marc Léopold Benjamin Bloch, French rural history:Again, to take a less extreme example, there is no denying that although the dialects of northern France retained their fundamentally Romance character, they betray many Germanic influences in phonetics and vocabulary, ...
- To mislead; to expose to inconvenience not foreseen to lead into error or sin.
- To lead astray, as a maiden; to seduce (as under promise of marriage) and then abandon.
- To show or to indicate; -- said of what is not obvious at first, or would otherwise be concealed.
Synonyms
- (to prove faithless or treacherous) sell