faithless
Americanadjective
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not adhering to allegiance, promises, vows, or duty.
the faithless behavior of Benedict Arnold.
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not trustworthy; unreliable.
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without trust or belief.
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being without religious faith.
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(among Christians) bereft of Christian faith.
adjective
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unreliable or treacherous
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dishonest or disloyal
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having no faith or trust
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lacking faith, esp religious faith
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of faithless
First recorded in 1250–1300, faithless is from the Middle English word faithles. See faith, -less
Explanation
Someone who's faithless can't be trusted to be loyal. The faithless advisor to a king might turn out to be a traitor plotting against him. If you're faithless, you're untrustworthy. You might be a faithless government worker, stealing state secrets to sell to an enemy, or a faithless boyfriend, secretly dating other people behind your girlfriend's back. The earliest meaning of faithless was "lacking religious faith," although it came to mean "deceptive" by the middle of the 14th century. Faith comes from the Latin fides, "trust, faith, or belief."
Vocabulary lists containing faithless
The Picture of Dorian Gray
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This Week In Words: November 14–20, 2020
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myPerspectives 9.6
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Because while nearly 20,000 delirious onlookers inside Madison Square Garden and millions more watching at home were celebrating, a few faithless and frustrated Knicks fans were busy doing something else.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 11, 2026
A lone faithless elector in Washington state made it a three-way race by voting for Ronald Reagan.
From Slate • Aug. 9, 2024
It is a different reality for the openly faithless in southern Nigeria; they even hold public meetings occasionally.
From Seattle Times • Oct. 4, 2023
Synonyms include faithless, false, disloyal, treacherous and traitorous.
From Salon • Sep. 18, 2021
I don’t believe they were faithless, but sincerity failed to give them substance, and they were swept away by other, stronger currents.
From "Educated" by Tara Westover
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
