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
The very first faithless elector was a guy named Sam Miles, who was chosen to vote for Adams and voted in the end for Jefferson.
From Salon ● Jan. 30, 2024
Bala’s lengthy detention and its traumatic effect on his young family illustrate the risks of being openly faithless in African countries where religious belief pervades social life and challenging such norms is taboo.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 18, 2021
“I was captured prisoner by the blackhearted, southron, faithless King of the Dragon, and then, in spite of it that she had three beautiful daughters already whatever.”
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
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.
