Betrayal

How to spell betrayal

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce betrayal

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does betrayal mean?

1. nounThe act of breaking faith with someone who trusted you, or of disclosing something that should have stayed secret.

Betrayal in a sentence

• Leaking the client list felt like a personal betrayal to her colleagues.

• The memoir describes the slow betrayal of a long friendship.

Where does betrayal come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word grows out of the verb 'betray', which English assembled in the medieval period from the native intensive prefix 'be-' and the Old French verb 'traïr', meaning 'to hand over' or 'to deliver up'. That French verb descended from the Latin 'tradere', literally 'to hand across' or 'to give over', the very same root that gives us 'tradition' (something handed down) and 'traitor' (one who hands over). The original sense was therefore concrete: to deliver a person or thing into enemy hands. Over time the meaning shifted to the emotional sense of breaking faith with someone who trusted you. The noun 'betrayal' was formed later by adding the ordinary '-al' suffix that turns a verb into the name of its action, and the tricky part for spellers is the unstressed '-ayal' ending, where the 'a' and the second silent stretch are easy to garble.

How the word is built

• be- (intensive prefix)
• tray (from Old French traïr, to hand over, from Latin tradere)
• -al (noun-forming suffix)