disloyal

Middle English, from Anglo-Norman desleal, desloial

• (UK) IPA^(key): [dɪsˈlɔɪ(j)əɫ]

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disloyal (comparative more disloyal, superlative most disloyal)

1. Not loyal, without loyalty.
   • 1536, Anne Boleyn, letter addressed to Henry VIII from the Tower of London, cited in Edward Herbert, The Life and Raigne of King Henry VIII, London: Thomas Whitaker, 1649, p. 383,

     Good your Grace, let not any light fancy, or bad Counsel of mine enemies withdraw your Princely favour from me; neither let that stain, that unworthy stain of a disloyall heart towards your good Grace, ever cast so foul a blot on your most dutifull Wife, and the Infant Princesse your daughter […]

   • c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:

     […] Norway himself,
     With terrible numbers,
     Assisted by that most disloyal traitor
     The thane of Cawdor, began a dismal conflict;

   • 1923, Willa Cather, One of Ours‎, Book One, Chapter 15:

     He told his mother he was glad to be back again. He sometimes felt as if it were disloyal to her for him to be so happy with Mrs. Erlich.

   • 1998, Tawfiq al-Hakim, “My Donkey and Hypocrisy”, in William Maynard Hutchins, transl., In the Tavern of Life and Other Stories‎, Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, page 65:

     Embarrassed about leaving him, I asked him to accompany me. It would have been disloyal to let him broil in the heat of Cairo, while I went off to a summer resort.

• faithless
• perfidious
• treacherous
• unfaithful
• unloyal

• disloyally

• disloyalty
• loyal