TREASON

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does treason mean? 

• TREASON (noun)
  The noun TREASON has 3 senses:

1. a crime that undermines the offender's government

2. disloyalty by virtue of subversive behavior

3. an act of deliberate betrayal

  Familiarity information: TREASON used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TREASON (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A crime that undermines the offender's government

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

high treason; lese majesty; treason

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

crime; criminal offence; criminal offense; law-breaking ((criminal law) an act punishable by law; usually considered an evil act)

Derivation:

treasonist (someone who betrays his country by committing treason)

treasonous (having the character of, or characteristic of, a traitor)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Disloyalty by virtue of subversive behavior

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

subversiveness; traitorousness; treason

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

disloyalty (the quality of being disloyal)

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

betrayal (the quality of aiding an enemy)

Derivation:

treasonist (someone who betrays his country by committing treason)

treasonous (having the character of, or characteristic of, a traitor)

Sense 3

Meaning:

An act of deliberate betrayal

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

betrayal; perfidy; treachery; treason

Hypernyms ("treason" 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 "treason"):

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

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

Derivation:

treasonist (someone who betrays his country by committing treason)

 Context examples 

Some judged her to be cold and hard; but such a thought was treason.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He nearly made the girl an accomplice in the treason by telling her his plans.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Sniff not treason where none is meant.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

If I have been a traitor to love, I will now, for love's sake, be a traitor to all that made that earlier treason.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Mrs Musgrove thinks all her servants so steady, that it would be high treason to call it in question; but I am sure, without exaggeration, that her upper house-maid and laundry-maid, instead of being in their business, are gadding about the village, all day long.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Bolgolam, the admiral, could not preserve his temper, but, rising up in fury, said, he wondered how the secretary durst presume to give his opinion for preserving the life of a traitor; that the services you had performed were, by all true reasons of state, the great aggravation of your crimes; that you, who were able to extinguish the fire by discharge of urine in her majesty’s apartment (which he mentioned with horror), might, at another time, raise an inundation by the same means, to drown the whole palace; and the same strength which enabled you to bring over the enemy’s fleet, might serve, upon the first discontent, to carry it back; that he had good reasons to think you were a Big-endian in your heart; and, as treason begins in the heart, before it appears in overt-acts, so he accused you as a traitor on that account, and therefore insisted you should be put to death.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Then, again, where is the price of his treason?

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

His very popularity seemed a disgrace and a treason to Brissenden.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

This lord, in conjunction with Flimnap the high-treasurer, whose enmity against you is notorious on account of his lady, Limtoc the general, Lalcon the chamberlain, and Balmuff the grand justiciary, have prepared articles of impeachment against you, for treason and other capital crimes.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

There he intervened, and then it was, Colonel Walter, that to treason you added the more terrible crime of murder.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)