perfidy

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French perfidie (“a treacherous word or act”),^[2][3][4][5] recorded in French as perfidye about 1510 and in the sense "treacherous character" from 1580,^[2] from Latin perfidia (“faithlessness, falsehood, treachery”);^[2][3][4][6] the American Heritage Dictionary, the Shorter Oxford, Hoad and Merriam-Webster Unabridged take it directly from Latin.^{[7][8][9][10]} The Latin noun is formed from perfidus (“faithless, treacherous”) with the suffix -ia,^[2][10] and perfidus from per- and fidēs (“faith”).^[2][6][7] Etymonline and Barnhart explain it from the phrase per fidem dēcipere (“to deceive through trust”);^[3][4] others take per- in a bad sense, "to destruction" or "to ill effect",^[7][5] and Weekley compares perjure.^[11] Etymonline traces fidēs to Proto-Indo-European *bheidh- (“to trust, confide”).^[3][7] The Latin word also gave Spanish perfidia, Catalan perfídia and Italian perfidia.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Deceitfulness, breach of faith, betrayal of trust: 1592, in Gabriel Harvey's Foure Letters.^[2][4] Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives 1572 as its first known use,^[10] and Etymonline dates it to the 1590s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept the sense of treachery since the 16th century; from 1688 it is also a count noun, a perfidious act.^[2][10] The OED notes that the adjective perfidious is recorded earlier than the noun,^[2] though Barnhart dates the adjective to 1598.^[4] The Shorter Oxford stresses the profession of faith or friendship made in order to betray.^[8] Johnson (1755) defined it as "treachery; want of faith; breach of faith".^[12] The Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins calls it a literary word.^[13]

Timeline

• 1592 – deceitfulness, breach of faith, treachery.^[2][4]
• 1688 – a perfidious act.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. Deliberate breach of faith or betrayal of trust; treachery or deceit.^[10][2][8]
2. A treacherous act: the perfidies of a false friend.^[10][14][2]

Related words

• perfidious
• faith
• fidelity

Usage notes

The phrase perfidious Albion translates French perfide Albion; the Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins says it was apparently first used by the Marquis de Ximenès, of Britain joining the allies against France in 1793, and popularized in a recruiting campaign under Napoleon I in 1813.^[13]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins