BETRAYAL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does betrayal mean? 

• BETRAYAL (noun)
  The noun BETRAYAL has 2 senses:

1. an act of deliberate betrayal

2. the quality of aiding an enemy

  Familiarity information: BETRAYAL used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BETRAYAL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An act of deliberate betrayal

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

betrayal; perfidy; treachery; treason

Hypernyms ("betrayal" is a kind of...):

dishonesty; knavery (lack of honesty; acts of lying or cheating or stealing)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "betrayal"):

double-crossing; double cross (an act of betrayal)

sellout (a betrayal of one's principles principles, country, cause, etc.)

Derivation:

betray (deliver to an enemy by treachery)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The quality of aiding an enemy

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("betrayal" is a kind of...):

subversiveness; traitorousness; treason (disloyalty by virtue of subversive behavior)

 Context examples 

I could not have borne to lose the smallest portion of her sisterly affection; yet, in that betrayal, I should have set a constraint between us hitherto unknown.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The letter, then, might either come from Hudson, the seaman, saying that he had betrayed the guilty secret which appeared to exist, or it might come from Beddoes, warning an old confederate that such a betrayal was imminent.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)