disloyalty
Americannoun
-
the quality of being disloyal; lack of loyalty; unfaithfulness.
- Synonyms:
- subversion
-
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:
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
Soviet authorities often saw the fact of their capture as a sign of possible disloyalty or collaboration with the enemy.
From BBC ● May 5, 2026
American Jews, exhausted by the nonsensical charge of disloyalty, have bent themselves into impressive contortions to demonstrate their bona fides as unambiguous, undivided, thoroughly unadulterated Americans.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 13, 2026
The brand disloyalty counterintuitively plays into Ulta, which aims to discover new brands.
From Barron's ● Apr. 9, 2026
Only when he climbed into his sleeping bag under the stars had his disloyalty struck him.
From "Pax" by Sara Pennypacker
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
Under the Imperial University, and still more under the University of the Third Republic, differences became disloyalties.
From France and the Republic A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 by Hurlbert, William Henry
Besides, the artifices by which friends endeavor to spare one another's feelings are pretty disloyalties.
From Cashel Byron's Profession by Shaw, Bernard
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.
