treason
noun
Simple meaning
The crime of betraying one's own country.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
treezuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈtɹizən
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The crime of betraying one's own country.
An act of deliberate betrayal
An act of treachery, betrayal of trust or confidence.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The crime of betraying one's own country.
Used this way, treason is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A crime that undermines the offender's government.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: crime of betraying one's own country
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Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.