Etymology

traitor

T1R1A1I1T1O1R1

Today it means: Someone who violates an allegiance and betrays their country; someone guilty of treason; one who, in breach of trust, delivers their country to an enemy, or yields up any fort or place entrusted to their defense, or surrenders an army or body of troops to the enemy, unless when vanquished. Full definition →

Middle English traitor ← Old French traïtor ← Latin trāditor
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Latin · derived fromtrāditor
  2. Old French · derived fromtraïtor
  3. Middle English · inherited fromtraitor
  4. English todaytraitor

From Middle English traitor, traitour, traytour, from Old French traïtor (French traître), from Latin trāditor. Displaced native Middle English swike from Old English swica (“traitor”), and Middle English proditour and traditour borrowed directly from Latin. The general Old English word denoting "traitor" was lǣwa or lǣwend. Doublet of traditor and treason.

Words from the same roots

Latintrāditor all →

traditor

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.