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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Eric Coomer, who was the security and product strategy director at the voting equipment company, sued the MyPillow founder and conspiracy theorist for calling him a traitor and accusing him of stealing the 2020 election.—
Jade Walker,
CNN Money,
17 June 2025
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The faithfuls must determine who the traitors are and banish them from the game in order to win the grand prize.—
Melina Khan,
USA Today,
13 June 2025
Cite this Entry
“Quisling.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/quisling. Accessed 1 Jul. 2025.
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