archtraitor

English

Etymology

From arch- +‎ traitor.

Noun

archtraitor (plural archtraitors)

1. A chief or transcendent traitor.
   • 1589, James Lea, The Birth, Purpose, and Mortall Wound of the Romish Holie League‎^[1], London: Thomas Cadman:

     […] that caitiffe Cardinall, and English Arch-traitor, from his Cannon of corrupt conceipt dischargeth two seditious Libels against his Souereign:

   • 1754, Isaac Watts, Remnants of Time, Employed in Prose and Verse, in The Posthumous Works of the Late Reverend Dr. Isaac Watts, London: T. and T. Longman et al., p. 276,^[2]

     He [Jesus] led Satan the Arch-Traitor bound at his Chariot Wheels […]

   • 1875, Christina Rossetti, “Who Shall Deliver Me?”, in The Goblin Market, The Prince’s Progress and Other Poems‎^[3], London: Macmillan, page 264:

     Myself, arch-traitor to myself;
     My hollowest friend, my deadliest foe,
     My clog whatever road I go.

   • 1973, Robert C. Alberts, The Good Provider: H. J. Heinz and his 57 Varieties‎^[4], Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Preface, p. x:

     In the furious battle over the 1906 Pure Food Law, he [Henry J. Heinz] was a hero to reformers and, to many of his fellow food processors, an archtraitor.

Translations

a chief or transcendent traitor

• Manx: ard-vraheyder m
• Portuguese: arquitraidor m