Betraying

How to spell betraying

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce betraying

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does betraying mean?

1. verbBeing disloyal to a person, country, or trust, or unintentionally revealing something meant to be hidden.
2. adjectiveRevealing or giving away something a person is trying to conceal.

Betraying in a sentence

• verb

  Betraying his closest colleague to the manager left him riddled with guilt.

• adjective

  A betraying tremor in his voice told the interviewer he was lying.

• verb

  She could not imagine betraying the secret her sister had shared in confidence.

• adjective

  The betraying blush on her cheeks revealed how embarrassed she truly was.

Where does betraying come from?

Language of origin: French

This word descends from the verb betray, which took shape in Middle English as betrayen. It was built from the native intensifying prefix be- joined to tray, a borrowing from Old French trair meaning 'to betray' or 'to deceive'. That French verb came in turn from the Latin tradere, which literally meant 'to hand over' or 'to deliver up', formed from trans 'across' and dare 'to give'. The grim sense developed naturally: to hand someone over to an enemy is to betray them, and the very same Latin tradere also gave us the seemingly innocent words 'tradition' and 'trade', all rooted in the idea of passing something on. The -ing ending simply marks the ongoing action, and the spelling trap is the -ay in the middle, since the sound could tempt a writer toward -ai.

How the word is built

• be- (intensive prefix)
• tray (to hand over, from Latin tradere)
• -ing (present participle suffix)