Treason

How to spell treason

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce treason

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does treason mean?

1. nounThe crime of betraying one's country, especially by attempting to overthrow the government or aid its enemies.

Treason in a sentence

• The former officer was charged with treason for passing secrets to a hostile state.

• Plotting to overthrow the monarch was historically punished as treason.

Where does treason come from?

Language of origin: French

Treason traces back to the Latin traditio, a noun meaning 'a handing over' or 'a delivering up', formed from the verb tradere, which combined trans 'across' with dare 'to give'. The literal idea was of handing something or someone over, and in late Latin this took on the darker shading of betrayal, of delivering a person to an enemy. The word reached English through Anglo-Norman French as traisoun or treisoun after the Norman Conquest, settling into the sense of a grave breach of allegiance, especially against a monarch or the state. Curiously, the very same Latin tradere also gave us 'tradition', literally the things handed down through generations, so betrayal and inheritance share a single root. The softened French spelling, with its single 's' and silent middle, is what trips writers, since the sound suggests 'trea-zon' but the letters do not double.

How the word is built

• tra- (from tradere: to hand over, betray)
• -son (noun suffix, from Latin -tio)