disloyalty
Americannoun
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disloyalties
plural
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the quality of being disloyal; lack of loyalty; unfaithfulness.
- Synonyms:
- subversion
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violation of allegiance or duty, as to a government.
-
a disloyal act.
noun
Synonym Usage
Disloyalty, perfidy, treachery, treason imply betrayal of trust. Disloyalty applies to any violation of loyalty, whether to a person, a cause, or one's country, and whether in thought or in deeds: to suspect disloyalty in a friend. Perfidy implies deliberate breaking of faith or of one's pledges and promises, on which others are relying: It is an act of perfidy to cheat innocent people. Treachery implies being secretly traitorous but seeming friendly and loyal: In treachery deceit is added to disloyalty. Treason is performing overt acts to help the enemies of one's country or government: Acting to aid a hostile power is treason.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of disloyalty
1400–50; late Middle English < Middle French desloiaute, Old French desleaute, equivalent to desleal disloyal + -te -ty 2
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.
See Examples For:
Garden eventually went on record to suggest that the lack of repeats was punishment for the trio's "disloyalty", saying in 2020: "It seems they've held that grudge ever since."
From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026
This is an astonishing display of incompetence, or disloyalty, or both.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026
The Chinese leader’s anticorruption campaign has widened into a fight against everything from disloyalty to “superstitious” behavior.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 18, 2026
The brand disloyalty counterintuitively plays into Ulta, which aims to discover new brands.
From Barron's ● Apr. 9, 2026
She began to hate them for this disloyalty and their cruelty to each other.
From "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith
Bill Whitman is a Carverian ex-husband pummeled by remorse for his assorted disloyalties.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 4, 2018
Whitman is a Carverian ex-husband pummeled by remorse for his assorted disloyalties.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 21, 2018
Despite many internal disorders and disloyalties ... the people of the Soviet Union generally trust and respect the wisdom and integrity of their leaders.
From Time Magazine Archive
The principal character is a cowardly miller, who ensues nothing but his own safety in the war of loyalties and disloyalties which is destroying Ireland.
From Old and New Masters by Robert Lynd
He lived in a time of grave national disloyalties, a time when peoples were abandoning their most sacred trust.
From The Whole Armour of God by John Henry Jowett
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.
