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TREACHERY
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
An act of deliberate betrayal
Synonyms:
betrayal; perfidy; treachery; treason
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("treachery" 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 "treachery"):
double-crossing; double cross (an act of betrayal)
sellout (a betrayal of one's principles principles, country, cause, etc.)
Derivation:
treacherous (tending to betray; especially having a treacherous character as attributed to the Carthaginians by the Romans)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Betrayal of a trust
Synonyms:
perfidiousness; perfidy; treachery
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("treachery" is a kind of...):
disloyalty (the quality of being disloyal)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "treachery"):
insidiousness (the quality of being designed to entrap)
Derivation:
treacherous (tending to betray; especially having a treacherous character as attributed to the Carthaginians by the Romans)
Context examples:
Then the peasants were vexed that the small peasant should have thus outwitted them, wanted to take vengeance on him, and accused him of this treachery before the mayor.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
No doubt they want his professional services, but, having used him, they may be inclined to punish him for what they will regard as his treachery.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
And yet it would be the blackest treachery to Holmes to draw back now from the part which he had intrusted to me.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
What has it been but a system of hypocrisy and deceit,—espionage, and treachery?
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
Martin Eden could not have found it in him, just then, to believe that her brother could be guilty of such treachery—especially when he had been the means of getting this particular brother out of an unpleasant row.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
His soul is as hellish as his form, full of treachery and fiend-like malice.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
Here was danger, some treachery or something.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
But good did come of the apple barrel, as you shall hear, for if it had not been for that, we should have had no note of warning and might all have perished by the hand of treachery.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
He could now, without the drawback of a single unpleasant surmise, without a glance forward at any possible treachery in his guest, give way to all his natural kind-hearted civility in solicitous inquiries after Mr. Frank Churchill's accommodation on his journey, through the sad evils of sleeping two nights on the road, and express very genuine unmixed anxiety to know that he had certainly escaped catching cold—which, however, he could not allow him to feel quite assured of himself till after another night.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
Three kings protested to me, that in their whole reigns they never did once prefer any person of merit, unless by mistake, or treachery of some minister in whom they confided; neither would they do it if they were to live again: and they showed, with great strength of reason, that the royal throne could not be supported without corruption, because that positive, confident, restiff temper, which virtue infused into a man, was a perpetual clog to public business.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
