TRAITOR

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does traitor mean? 

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

1. someone who betrays his country by committing treason

2. a person who says one thing and does another

  Familiarity information: TRAITOR used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TRAITOR (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Someone who betrays his country by committing treason

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

traitor; treasonist

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

criminal; crook; felon; malefactor; outlaw (someone who has committed a crime or has been legally convicted of a crime)

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

collaborationist; collaborator; quisling (someone who collaborates with an enemy occupying force)

fifth columnist; saboteur (a member of a clandestine subversive organization who tries to help a potential invader)

traitress (female traitor)

Instance hyponyms:

Arnold; Benedict Arnold (United States general and traitor in the American Revolution; in 1780 his plan to surrender West Point to the British was foiled (1741-1801))

Derivation:

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

Sense 2

Meaning:

A person who says one thing and does another

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

betrayer; double-crosser; double-dealer; traitor; two-timer

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

beguiler; cheat; cheater; deceiver; slicker; trickster (someone who leads you to believe something that is not true)

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

Judas (someone who betrays under the guise of friendship)

 Context examples 

Besides he is not a traitor.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I shall never be said to be traitor to the little king.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“Heads Off!” cried he; and with the word the traitors’ heads fell before him, and Heinel was once more king of the Golden Mountain.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

Our two traitors had been destroyed, but the mischief that they had done lived after them.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Should the scheme he had now sketched prove feasible, Silver, already doubly a traitor, would not hesitate to adopt it.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

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)

He must disclose all, or he is a traitor to his service.

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

This was true: and while he spoke my very conscience and reason turned traitors against me, and charged me with crime in resisting him.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

No more to say—a—or listen to persuasion—go immediately—not capable—a—bear society—upon the track of devoted and doomed traitor—HEEP!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Upon inquiry I was told, “that their names were to be found on no record, except a few of them, whom history has represented as the vilest of rogues and traitors.”

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