betray - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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.

betray (third-person singular simple present betrays, present participle betraying, simple past and past participle betrayed)

  1. (transitive) 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.
  2. (transitive) To prove faithless or treacherous to, as to a trust or one who trusts; to be false to; to deceive.
    Synonyms: sell, quisle, traitorize; see also Thesaurus:betray
    to betray a person or a cause
    Quresh betrayed Sunil to marry Nuzhat.
    My eyes have been betraying me since I turned sixty.
    • c. 1590 (date written), [John Lyly], Mother Bombie. […], London: […] Thomas Scarlet for Cuthbert Burby, published 1594, →OCLC, Act II, scene ii, signature C3, verso:
      I maruell I heare no nevves of Dromio, either hee ſlackes the matter, or betrayes his maiſter, I dare not motion anie thing to Stellio, till I knovve vvhat my boy hath don; Ile hunt him out, if the loiterſacke be gone ſpringing into a tauerne, Ile fetch him reeling out.
  3. (transitive) To violate the confidence of, by disclosing a secret, or that which one is bound in honor not to make known.
  4. (transitive) To disclose (a secret, etc.) in deliberate violation of someone’s confidence.
    Synonym: give away
  5. (transitive) To disclose or indicate, for example something which prudence would conceal; to reveal unintentionally.
    Synonym: give away
    Though he had lived in England for many years, a faint accent betrayed his Swedish origin.
    • 2012 May 24, Nathan Rabin, “Film: Reviews: Men In Black 3”, in The A.V. Club‎[1]:
      Jones’ sad eyes betray a pervasive pain his purposefully spare dialogue only hints at, while the perfectly cast [Josh] 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, […]
  6. (transitive) To mislead; to expose to inconvenience not foreseen; to lead into error or sin.
  7. (transitive) To lead astray; to seduce (as under promise of marriage) and then abandon.

to deliver into the hands of an enemy

to prove faithless or treacherous

to violate the confidence of, by disclosing a secret

to disclose or discover

to show or to indicate

to mislead, to lead into error or sin

to lead astray, as a maiden