Perfidy
noun ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A state or act of violating faith or allegiance; violation of a promise or vow, or of trust. countable, uncountable
- 2 an act of deliberate betrayal wordnet
- 3 An illegitimate act of deception, such as using symbols like the Red Cross or white flag in a false claim of surrender to gain proximity to an enemy for purposes of attack. countable, uncountable
"Stratagems must be carefully distinguished strategy from perfidy, since the former are allowed, whereas the latter is prohibited."
- 4 betrayal of a trust wordnet
- 5 A state or act of deceit. countable, uncountable
"Germans could not get over the perfidy of it. It was unbelievable that the English, having degenerated to the stage where suffragettes heckled the Prime Minister and defied the police, were going to fight."
Example
More examples"Stratagems must be carefully distinguished strategy from perfidy, since the former are allowed, whereas the latter is prohibited."
Etymology
From Middle French perfidie, from Latin perfidia from perfidus (“faithless, treacherous, false”), from fides (“faith”); related to, for example, English fidelity.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.