Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The character of being perfidious; treachery; traitorousness; faithlessness.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The quality of being perfidious; perfidy.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun rare
Unfaithfulness ;deceitfulness ;perfidy .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun betrayal of a trust
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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They gave the officers to understand that far from wishing to act as enemies, they were willing to afford the shipwrecked people all the assistance in their power; but these barbarians shewed, on all occasions, a perfidiousness which is peculiar to the inhabitants of these climates; when the brig had sent biscuit on shore, they seized the half of it, and a few moments after, sold it at an exorbitant price, to those from whom they had stolen it.
Naufrage de la frigate la Méduse. English Jean Baptiste Henri Savigny 1818
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The mismanagement, secrecy and outright graft of the last administration amount to levels of perfidiousness that are tough to match in any administration.
Why Are The Ammo Shelves Empty? What, Exactly, Are People Afraid Of? 2009
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Reagan harped on the perfidiousness of big government every chance he got, no matter the specific occasion.
Matthew Yglesias » The Filibuster Was Never a Good Idea 2010
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The mismanagement, secrecy and outright graft of the last administration amount to levels of perfidiousness that are tough to match in any administration.
Why Are The Ammo Shelves Empty? What, Exactly, Are People Afraid Of? 2009
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That they should be doing so for the selfish, narrow-minded, hidebound partisan purposes of avoiding defeat at the hands of the electorate rather than out of any grand point of principle makes their act of dishonest and dishonourable perfidiousness all the more shameful.
RIP The UK : Casually Butchered For The Convenience & Well-Being Of Socialism 2008
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That they should be doing so for the selfish, narrow-minded, hidebound partisan purposes of avoiding defeat at the hands of the electorate rather than out of any grand point of principle makes their act of dishonest and dishonourable perfidiousness all the more shameful.
Archive 2008-03-02 2008
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Included as well, according to the government, were "derogatory comments about the perfidiousness of specific persons involved, and statements which might be offensive to nations or governments."
Why WikiLeaks Is Unlike the Pentagon Papers Floyd Abrams 2010
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The second thought has to do with Edwards--Edwards may well turn out to be the king maker in this election--Depending on results of the mega primaries, he could have enough delgates to throw to Obama and sink HRC--certainly the egregious robo calls from the clinton campaign criticizing him on fair trade, when BILL himself signed NAFTA speaks to the disreputability and the sheer perfidiousness of the Clintons and their machine.
Waiting for the South Carolina results. Ann Althouse 2008
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The perfidiousness of their ruthless attack boggles the mind of decent Americans.
Balkinization 2006
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With this seductive scenario of Saudi Arabian perfidiousness, where all the political pawns are being maneuvered into place by the hand of Saudi Arabia, to achieve calm in Iraq for the benefit of Washington at the expense of Israel is another indicator of the hypocrisy of the controversial American academics John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt.
On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with... 2007
qroqqa commented on the word perfidiousness
His resentment of this treatment, which, in his own opinion at least, he had not deserved, was such that he broke off all correspondence with most of his contributors, and appeared to consider them as persecutors and oppressors; and in the latter part of his life declared that their conduct toward him, since his departure from London, had 'been perfidiousness improving on perfidiousness, and inhumanity on inhumanity.'
—Johnson's life of Savage
Also an interestingly biting use of 'improve': OED lists several obsolete uses where it means "increase (something bad)".
December 12, 2008