Wordsmith.org: the magic of words


A.Word.A.Day

 About | Media | Search | Contact  


Home

Today's Word

Yesterday's Word

Archives

FAQ
Apr 26, 2011
This week's theme
Words related to clothing

This week's words
flathat
turncoat
shirty
pantywaist
bootstrap

Make a gift that
keeps on giving.
A gift subscription of AWAD or give the gift of books
Discuss
Feedback
RSS/XML
Bookmark and Share Facebook Twitter Digg MySpace Bookmark and Share
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

turncoat

PRONUNCIATION:
(TUHRN-koht)

MEANING:
noun: Someone who changes allegiance and joins the opposite side.

ETYMOLOGY:
The color, and especially the color of clothing, has long symbolized association with a particular cause. For example, soldiers in an army or players in a sports team don a designated color. The idea behind the word turncoat is someone switching allegiances and turning his coat inside out to hide his earlier colors. Earliest documented use: 1567.

USAGE:
"You could almost imagine the little turncoats from the last poster creeping off and taking up residence in another series of photographs downstairs."
Julius Purcell; Faces That Cannot be Argued Away; Financial Times (London, UK); Jul 18, 2006.

See more usage examples of turncoat in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. -George Washington, 1st US president, general (1732-1799)

We need your help

Help us continue to spread the magic of words to readers everywhere

Donate

Subscriber Services
Awards | Stats | Links | Privacy Policy
Contribute | Advertise

© 1994-2025 Wordsmith