Meaning & use
betray
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Meanings
verbtransitive
To break the trust of someone who relied on you, such as by helping their enemy or breaking a promise.
Grammar: Takes an object: betray a friend.
Patterns
- betray someone
- betray someone to someone
He betrayed his best friend by telling the secret to his rivals.
The spy betrayed her country for money.
I felt betrayed when my partner lied to me.
verbtransitive
To go against a principle, promise or ideal you are supposed to uphold.
Grammar: Takes an object such as trust, values or principles.
Patterns
- betray a principle
- betray someone's trust
The politician betrayed his own principles to win votes.
She refused to betray the values her parents taught her.
Lying to patients betrays the trust they place in doctors.
verbtransitive
To show a feeling or fact that you meant to hide, usually without realizing it.
Grammar: The subject is often a face, voice or action: his voice betrayed his fear.
Patterns
- betray something
Her shaking hands betrayed her nerves.
His accent betrayed his origins.
The tremor in his voice betrayed how worried he was.
Word forms
| third person singular | betrays |
|---|---|
| past tense | betrayed |
| past participle | betrayed |
| -ing form | betraying |
Common combinations
- betray someone's trust
- She would never betray her friend's trust.
- betray a secret
- He betrayed a secret that was supposed to stay hidden.
- betray your country
- The general was accused of betraying his country.
- betray a friend
- It hurts to betray a friend.
- feel betrayed
- Voters felt betrayed by the broken promise.
- betray emotion
- His face betrayed no emotion.
Synonyms and how they differ
- deceive
- Deceive means to make someone believe something false, while betray means breaking trust, usually after loyalty was given.
- double-cross
- Double-cross is informal and suggests a planned trick on someone you had agreed to work with.
- reveal
- Reveal is neutral and deliberate, whereas betray, in the last sense, suggests something slips out unintentionally.
- desert
- Desert means to abandon someone, while betray means to harm someone who trusted you, often in secret.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: betray or portray? betray or bestow?
betray vs portray
Portray means to depict or describe, such as in a film. Betray means to break trust or reveal something unintentionally.
betray vs bestow
Bestow means to give something as an honor. It has nothing to do with disloyalty.
Practice
His shaking voice ___ how nervous he was, even though he smiled.
Choose one answer.
Betrayed here means showed without meaning to. Portrayed would mean depicted in art, and pretended means deliberately faking, which is the opposite of an unintentional reveal.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “betray”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.