betrayal
betrayals
Betrayal means "an act of deliberate disloyalty," like when your friend told other people all your secrets. What a betrayal!
Betrayal's root is betray, which comes from the Middle English word bitrayen — meaning "mislead, deceive." Betrayal has to do with destroying someone's trust, possibly by lying. If you start dating your best friend's girlfriend behind his back, that's an act of betrayal. Betrayal can also mean "helping an enemy," such as a person who gives secret information to a country that is at war with his or her own.
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the quality of aiding an enemy
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type of:
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subversiveness, traitorousness, treason
disloyalty by virtue of subversive behavior
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subversiveness, traitorousness, treason
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an act of deliberate betrayal
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types:
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double cross, double-crossing
an act of betrayal
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sellout
an act of betrayal
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type of:
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dishonesty, knavery
lack of honesty; acts of lying or cheating or stealing
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double cross, double-crossing
Vocabulary lists containing betrayal
Inspired by the first black woman to be crowned Miss America, thirteen-year-old Vanessa enters a local beauty pageant in the hopes of transforming her life.
This searing poem alternates between the perspective of Ellen West, a woman dying from anorexia nervosa, and doctors at a psychiatric clinic where she is undergoing treatment. Read the poem here.
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