perfidious
adjUS /pɚˈfɪdi.əs/ · UK /pəˈfɪdi.əs/
Etymology From Latin perfidiōsus (“treacherous”), from perfidia.
1
Of, pertaining to, or representing perfidy; disloyal to what should command one's fidelity or allegiance.
- TRINCULO (speaking about Caliban): By this light, a most perfidious and drunken / monster: when his god's asleep, he'll rob his bottle.1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]:
- The perfidious Ricimer soon became dissatisfied with Anthe'mius, and raised the standard of revolt.1851, Oliver Goldsmith, “ch. 26”, in William C. Taylor, editor, Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome:
3 more examples
- [S]he knew Huntly for the ambitious traitor he was, a man peculiarly perfidious and self-seeking.1905, Andrew Lang, “ch. 14”, in John Knox and the Reformation:
- When the Nazis branded Feininger a "degenerate artist" in 1937, he left 54 paintings for safekeeping with a Bauhaus friend named Hermann Klumpp. After the war, and for the rest of Feininger's life, the perfidious Klumpp refused to give them back.2005 June 21, “Art: The Velocipede of Modernism”, in Time, archived from the original on 12 Nov 2011:
- Enraged, the 2010 Nobel literature laureate thundered that he was “flabbergasted to learn that this kind of gossip can find its way into a respectable publication such as the Book Review” - a “slanderous and perfidious” instance of the convergence of posh and pop that his book inveighs against.2015 August 28, John Dugdale, “Mario Vargas Llosa, Hola! and the shallow reading of a review”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
- Synonyms
- deceitful, disloyal, duplicitous, faithless, treacherous, traitorous, unfaithful
- Antonyms
- faithful, honorable, loyal, trustworthy
- Derived terms
- Perfidious Albion, perfidiously, perfidiousness, unperfidious
- Related terms
- perfidy