betray
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betray
- /bɪˈtɹeɪ/
- /bəˈtɹeɪ/
Rhymes with -eɪ
Where it comes from
From Middle English betrayen, bitrayen (“to commit an act of treason against”), equivalent to be- + tray (“to betray”).
Middle English bi- is from Old English be- (“be-”), from Proto-Germanic *bi- (“be-”), from Proto-Germanic *bi (“near, by”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁epi (“at, near”). Compare also traitor, treason, tradition. The modern sense “to disclose, discover, reveal unintentionally” is due to influence from or merger with English bewray (“to reveal, divulge”), which is similar in sound and meaning. The similarity with German betrügen, Dutch bedriegen, from Proto-West Germanic *bidreugan (“to betray, deceive”), is coincidental.
verb betrays · betraying · betrayed
- To deliver into the hands of an enemy by treachery or fraud, in violation of trust; to give up treacherously or faithlessly. 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. 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 (a secret, etc.) in deliberate violation of someone’s confidence. The dead leap at the throat, destroy The meaning of the day; dark forms Have scaled your walls, and spies betray Old secrets to amorphous swarms.
- To disclose or indicate, for example something which prudence would conceal; to reveal unintentionally. Though he had lived in England for many years, a faint accent betrayed his Swedish origin.
- To mislead; to expose to inconvenience not foreseen; to lead into error or sin.
- To lead astray; to seduce (as under promise of marriage) and then abandon.
Similar: assfuck, betray, burn, cop out, cross out, cross up, double-cross, do someone dirty, do the dirty on, false, go back on, knife
