as in traitor
one who betrays a trust or an allegiance
warned that all quislings would be punished without mercy
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Recent Examples of quisling
But the president's new FTC chair, Andrew Ferguson, is an outspoken Big Tech critic on X and is signaling the panel won't be stacked with pro-industry quislings.
—
Marc Caputo, Axios, 10 Feb. 2025
Erdogan, meanwhile, lambasted Kilicdaroglu as a quisling who is in cahoots with the West and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a Kurdish separatist group that both Ankara and Washington consider a terrorist entity.
—Nabih Bulos, Los Angeles Times, 28 May 2023
And Kilicdaroglu was an easy mark for Erdogan, who has belittled him for years and cast him during the campaign as both a terrorist and a quisling for Western interests — accusations that stuck in the minds of some voters.
—Kareem Fahim, Washington Post, 27 May 2023
This may sound like a technical squabble among quislings.
—David Z. Morris, Slate Magazine, 6 June 2017
Marc Caputo, Axios, 10 Feb. 2025
Erdogan, meanwhile, lambasted Kilicdaroglu as a quisling who is in cahoots with the West and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a Kurdish separatist group that both Ankara and Washington consider a terrorist entity.
—Nabih Bulos, Los Angeles Times, 28 May 2023
And Kilicdaroglu was an easy mark for Erdogan, who has belittled him for years and cast him during the campaign as both a terrorist and a quisling for Western interests — accusations that stuck in the minds of some voters.
—Kareem Fahim, Washington Post, 27 May 2023
This may sound like a technical squabble among quislings.
—David Z. Morris, Slate Magazine, 6 June 2017
Recent Examples of Synonyms for quisling
traitor
Noun
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Dionysius of Heraclea, caught in a health crisis, abandoned Stoicism for the pleasures of the Cyrenaics — only to be branded a traitor by former allies who saw his change of heart as proof of weakness.—
Shai Tubali,
Big Think,
30 Sep. 2025
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The bandit takes the pair into Shaybani territory, where he is treated with suspicion, to the extent that he is considered a traitor and condemned to die.—
Damon Wise,
Deadline,
28 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Quisling.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/quisling. Accessed 3 Oct. 2025.
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