Perfidious

Definition: Perfidious

Perfidious

Adjective

1. Tending to betray; especially having a treacherous character as attributed to the Carthaginians by the Romans; "Punic faith"; "the perfidious Judas"; "the fiercest and most treacherous of foes"; "treacherous intrigues".

Date "perfidious" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1350. (references)

Synonyms: Perfidious

Synonyms: punic (adj), treacherous (adj). (additional references)

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Falsehood	Collusive, collusory; artful; (cunning); perfidious; spurious; (deceptive); untrue; falsified; Verb: covinous.
Improbity	False-hearted, disingenuous; unfair, one-sided; double, double-hearted, double-tongued, double-faced; timeserving, crooked, tortuous,insidious, Machiavelian, dark, slippery; fishy; perfidious, treacherous, perjured.
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

Crosswords: Perfidious

English words defined with "perfidious": Disleal ♦ False-hearted ♦ perfidiously, Proditorious, Punic ♦ treacherous. (references)

Specialty definitions using "perfidious": Bottes ♦ Menippos. (references)

Domain	Usage
Screenplays	In weaving his subtle net, he employed all the insidious devices known to his perfidious profession. (One Rainy Afternoon; writing credit: Stephen Morehouse Avery; Maurice Hanline)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Domain	Title
Books	Perfidious Albion (reference) Perfidious Albion: the origins of Anglo-French rivalry in the Levant (reference) The Perfidious brethren (anonymous) Love in its empire (reference) The Perfidious P--- (anonymous) The glorious life and actions of St. Whigg (anonymous). The life and adventures of Captain John Avery (anonymous) (reference) The Perfidious Parrot (reference) (more book examples)

Music	Perfidious Albion (reference) (more classical music examples; more popular music examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Title	Author	Quote
Les Miserables	Hugo, Victor	Woman is perfidious and tortuous.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Speaker	Term	Phrase(s)
James Madison	1809-1817	Nor is it less so that penal enactments should be provided for cases of corrupt and perfidious intercourse with the enemy, not amounting to treason nor yet embraced by any statutory provisions.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

"Perfidious" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 95.24% of the time. "Perfidious" is used about 21 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Adjective (general or positive)	95.24%	20	78,262
Noun (proper)	4.76%	1	339,140
Total	100.00%	21	N/A

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Language		Translations for "perfidious"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		i pabesë (backhand, disloyal, faithless, false-hearted, punic, sacrilegious, traitorous, treacherous, unfaithful, viperous), besëthyes. (various references)

Arabic		‏غادر بطبعه, ‏غدار, ‏خائن (betrayer, deceiver, disloyal, faithless, false, renegade, traitor, traitorous, treacherous, treasonable, unfaithful, unreliable, untrue). (various references)

Bulgarian		коварен (catty, crafty, guileful, insidious, snaky, subtle, trappy, underhand), вероломен (disloyal, faithless, perjured, perjurious, serpentine, treacherous), неверен (disloyal, faithless, false, false-hearted, inconstant, incorrect, mendacious, mock, treacherous, unfaithful, untrue, wrongful), предателски (disloyal, telltale, traitorous), перфиден. (various references)

Chinese		背信棄義 (be perfidious, break faith with somebody). (various references)

Czech		zrádný (deceitful, false, guileful, shifty, telltale, traitorous, treacherous, treasonable, treasonous), vìrolomný. (various references)

French		perfide. (various references)

German		verräterisch (telling, telltale, traitorous, treacherous, treacherously, treasonable, treasonably), treulos (disloyal, disloyally, faithless, false, falsely, perfidiously, traitorous, treacherous, unfaithful), hinterhältig (false, guileful, mean, snaky, sneaky, treacherous, underhand). (various references)

Greek		ύπουλοσ (catty, hangdog, insidious, insinuate, shady, sneak, sneaker, sneaky, underhand, underhanded), άπιστοσ (disloyal, faithless, infidel, recreant, unbeliever, unfaithful, ungodly). (various references)

Hebrew		בו�'�"� י (insidious, traitorous, treacherous, unfaithful). (various references)

Hungarian		galád (atrocious, cunning, dastardly, dirty, mean-spirited), álnok (deceitful, deceptive, deep, disingenuous, disloyal, double dealing, double faced, false-hearted, felon, hollow-hearted, treacherous). (various references)

Italian		perfido (deceitful, malicious, snaky, treasonable). (various references)

Manx		neuhreisteilagh (treacherous, unhopeful), neufirrinagh (affected, fictitious, insincere, unfaithful), kialgagh (calculated, calculating, circumventory, crafty, deceitful, deceiving, deceptive, fallacious, fly, guileful, illusive, insidious, seditious, treacherous, tricky, wily), foalsey (affected, bogus, counterfeit, dud, dummy, ersatz, fallacious, false, feigned, forged, hollow, hollow of victory, hypocritical, pinchbeck, sham, spurious, substitute, suppositious, tinsel, treacherous, two-faced, wrong, wrong as note). (various references)

Pig Latin		erfidiouspay

Romanian		perfid (false, false-hearted, guileful, serpentine, shifty, snaky, treacherous), trãdãtor (foul, Ratter, recreant, renegade, traitor, traitorous, treacherous, turncoat), necinstit (crooked, dirty, dishonest, dishonestly, disingenuous, faithless, foul, fraudulent, knavish, knavishly, low down, meretricious, raw, rotten, unfair, unfaithful, unlawful). (various references)

Russian		вероломный (disloyal, double-hearted, faithless, falsehearted, false-hearted, guileful, unfaithful), предательский (disloyal, recreant, renegade, serpentine, traitorous, trappy, treacherous, treasonable, treasonous). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		podmukao (insidious, knavish, trappy, treacherous, underhand), perfidan (falsehearted), lukav (arch, artful, astute, cagey, cagy, canny, captious, crafty, cunning, designing, insidious, leery, shrewd, sleeky, sly, tricky, vulpine, wily). (various references)

Spanish		pérfido (false). (various references)

Swedish		trolös (disloyal, faithless, jilt, recreant, treacherous, unfaithful), svekfull (deceitful, deceptive, fraudulent, treacherous). (various references)

Turkish		vefasız (disloyal, errant, erring, inconstant, unfaithful, untrue, untruthful), sadakâtsiz (disloyal, false-hearted, inconstant, insincere, unfaithful, untrue), hain (betrayer, cattish, catty, deceitful, dingo, disloyal, faithless, false, false-hearted, foul, insidious, Judas, malicious, nefarious, rat, Ratter, renegade, scoundrel, scoundrelly, serpent, snaky, traitor, traitorous, treacherous, ungrateful, villain, viperish, viperous, wicked). (various references)

Ukranian		віроломний (deceitful, faithless, guileful, treacherous, trustless), зрадницький (apostate, apostatic, apostatical, recreant, telltale, traitorous, treasonable, wrong). (various references)

Vietnamese		phản bội (traitorous, treacherous), bội bạc; xảo trá. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Derivations
	Words beginning with "perfidious": perfidiously, perfidiousness, perfidiousnesses. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Perfidious" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Cervidius, perditious, perfedious, perfideous, perfidiuos, perfidous, perfiduous, perfidus, persidious, Porfirio, prefidious, presidious. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

Words rhyming with "perfidious" (pronounced 'Per*fid"i*ous'): Abdominous, Abiogenous, Ablatitious, Abnormous, Absentaneous, Absonous, Abstemious, Abstentious, Abstractitious, Acanthaceous, Acanthocarpous, Acanthocephalous, Acanthophorous, Acanthopodious, Acanthopterous, Acanthopterygious, Acarpellous, Acarpous, Acclivitous, Acclivous, Acephalous, Acetabuliferous, Acetarious, Acetous, Achilous, Achlamydeous, Acholous, Achromatous, Achroous, Achylous, Achymous, Acidiferous, Acidulous, Acinaceous, Acotyledonous, Acrimonious, Acrocarpous, Acrogenous, Acronyctous, Acrosporous, Acrotomous, Actinophorous, Aculeous, Acuminous, Addititious, Adelphous, Adenophorous, Adenophyllous, Adenous, Adiaphorous. (additional references)

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "d-e-f-i-i-o-p-r-s-u"
	-2 letters: presidio, purified, purifies.
	-3 letters: periods, profuse, soupier, spiroid, updries.
	-4 letters: dopers, dopier, dories, douser, drupes, dupers, euripi, fiords, furies, iodise, irides, irised, pedros, perdus, period, poised, poiser, poseur, poufed, poured, prides, prised, prosed, prudes, pseudo, pursed, redips, rouped, roused, souped, soured, spider, spired, spored, surfed, uprise, uprose, upside, uredos.
	-5 letters: defis, dipso, doers, doper.
	Words containing the letters "d-e-f-i-i-o-p-r-s-u"
	+2 letters: perfidiously, profundities.
	+4 letters: perfidiousness.
	+5 letters: hyperfastidious.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.