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Betray

//bɪˈtɹeɪ// verb

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To deliver into the hands of an enemy by treachery or fraud, in violation of trust; to give up treacherously or faithlessly. transitive

    "An officer betrayed the city."

  2. 2
    give away information about somebody wordnet
  3. 3
    To prove faithless or treacherous to, as to a trust or one who trusts; to be false to; to deceive. transitive

    "to betray a person or a cause"

  4. 4
    cause someone to believe an untruth wordnet
  5. 5
    To violate the confidence of, by disclosing a secret, or that which one is bound in honor not to make known. transitive
Show 8 more definitions
  1. 6
    reveal unintentionally wordnet
  2. 7
    To disclose (a secret, etc.) in deliberate violation of someone’s confidence. transitive

    "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."

  3. 8
    disappoint, prove undependable to; abandon, forsake wordnet
  4. 9
    To disclose or indicate, for example something which prudence would conceal; to reveal unintentionally. transitive

    "Though he had lived in England for many years, a faint accent betrayed his Swedish origin."

  5. 10
    deliver to an enemy by treachery wordnet
  6. 11
    To mislead; to expose to inconvenience not foreseen; to lead into error or sin. transitive
  7. 12
    be sexually unfaithful to one's partner in marriage wordnet
  8. 13
    To lead astray; to seduce (as under promise of marriage) and then abandon. transitive

Etymology

From Middle English betrayen, bitrayen (“to commit an act of treason against”), equivalent to be- + tray (“to betray”). further etymology information 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.

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