Perfidious vs Traitor - What's the difference?
perfidious | traitor |
Of, pertaining to, or representing perfidy; disloyal to what should command one's fidelity or allegiance.
* 1610 , , act 2 scene 2
*:TRINCULO (speaking about ): By this light, a most perfidious and drunken / monster: when his god's asleep, he'll rob his bottle.
* 1851 , , Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome (ed. William C. Taylor), ch. 26:
* 1905 , , John Knox and the Reformation , ch. 14:
* 2005 June 21, , "
One who violates his allegiance and betrays his/her country; one guilty of treason; one who, in breach of trust, delivers his country to an enemy, or yields up any fort or place intrusted to his defense, or surrenders an army or body of troops to the enemy, unless when vanquished; also, one who takes arms and levies war against his country; or one who aids an enemy in conquering his country.
Hence, one who betrays any confidence or trust.
As an adjective perfidious
is of, pertaining to, or representing perfidy; disloyal to what should command one's fidelity or allegiance.As a noun traitor is
traitor.perfidious
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- The perfidious Ricimer soon became dissatisfied with Anthe'mius, and raised the standard of revolt.
- [S]he knew Huntly for the ambitious traitor he was, a man peculiarly perfidious and self-seeking.
Art: The Velocipede of Modernism," Time :
- When the Nazis branded Feininger a "degenerate artist" in 1937, he left 54 paintings for safekeeping with a Bauhaus friend named Hermann Klumpp. After the war, and for the rest of Feininger's life, the perfidious Klumpp refused to give them back.