What's the difference between betray and fail?

Betray


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To deliver into the hands of an enemy by treachery or fraud, in violation of trust; to give up treacherously or faithlessly; as, an officer betrayed the city.
  • (v. t.) To prove faithless or treacherous to, as to a trust or one who trusts; to be false to; to deceive; as, to betray a person or a cause.
  • (v. t.) To violate the confidence of, by disclosing a secret, or that which one is bound in honor not to make known.
  • (v. t.) To disclose or discover, as something which prudence would conceal; to reveal unintentionally.
  • (v. t.) To mislead; to expose to inconvenience not foreseen to lead into error or sin.
  • (v. t.) To lead astray, as a maiden; to seduce (as under promise of marriage) and then abandon.
  • (v. t.) To show or to indicate; -- said of what is not obvious at first, or would otherwise be concealed.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) "I know the man, and I know he betrays everyone who gets close to him," said one prominent Lebanese politician.
  • (2) The voice claiming to be Chávez says he is convalescing and his closest friends betrayed him.
  • (3) Asked by television reporters outside the church for comment on the officers’ decision to turn their backs, Lynch said: “The feeling is real, but today is about mourning, tomorrow is about debate.” Pressed on the point, Lynch said: “We have to understand the betrayal that they feel.
  • (4) Those Labour MPs plunging their party into an unwanted crisis are betraying not only the party itself but also our national interest at one of the most critical moments any of us can recall.
  • (5) It is a betrayal that will see thousands of young people decide that they cannot risk the debt that going to university would load them with.
  • (6) Plenty of people felt embarrassed, upset, outraged or betrayed by the Goncourts' record of things they had said or had said about them.
  • (7) Tories, for their part, claim that Lib Dems are betraying a promise to vote for the boundary review in return for being able to hold a national referendum on introducing a new alternative vote system last year.
  • (8) What I can say is that it was a disaster and a betrayal to Ludlam, and I can only apologise for not having been more proactive in defending him.
  • (9) You’re betraying the working class of Britain they tell me.
  • (10) A flawed heroine of the anti-apartheid struggle, she is unlikely to keep a low profile in the coming days or to bite her lip if she believes Mandela's memory is being betrayed.
  • (11) This is a man who has betrayed his country,” Kerry told CBS News .
  • (12) Couple this with the revelation that degrees might not even be worth the investment, and the sense of betrayal from those who have already graduated risks spilling over.
  • (13) Bill Gates betrayed his ailing business partner and tried to deprive him of his share of the Microsoft fortune, according to a scathing memoir from Paul Allen , the company's billionaire co-founder.
  • (14) Actually, I had betrayed the seriousness of what had happened, because my story ignored the fact that I had been genuinely frightened and in a degree of danger during the heckling.
  • (15) So maybe tiki-taka hasn't died, but Spain betrayed it by trying to play with a recognized striker, and then with whatever the hell Fernando Torres is."
  • (16) By the most generous standards it is a serious lapse if not a betrayal of the editorial professionalism on which the BBC's reputation has been built over generations.
  • (17) Far from being disgusted with her physicality, Ruskin – a rigorous Christian and idealist – felt anxious and subconsciously betrayed by the realisation that his love for Effie was a one-sided affair.
  • (18) Every detail of the dissolution honours betrayed contempt for the public.
  • (19) But she raised concerns that parents' fears over costs betray a lack of understanding of grants and loans available to students from less affluent homes, suggesting more should be done to explain all the options.
  • (20) For all the bad blood of the past year, for all the talk of betrayal, there remains the kernel of a progressive consensus.

Fail


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To be wanting; to fall short; to be or become deficient in any measure or degree up to total absence; to cease to be furnished in the usual or expected manner, or to be altogether cut off from supply; to be lacking; as, streams fail; crops fail.
  • (v. i.) To be affected with want; to come short; to lack; to be deficient or unprovided; -- used with of.
  • (v. i.) To fall away; to become diminished; to decline; to decay; to sink.
  • (v. i.) To deteriorate in respect to vigor, activity, resources, etc.; to become weaker; as, a sick man fails.
  • (v. i.) To perish; to die; -- used of a person.
  • (v. i.) To be found wanting with respect to an action or a duty to be performed, a result to be secured, etc.; to miss; not to fulfill expectation.
  • (v. i.) To come short of a result or object aimed at or desired ; to be baffled or frusrated.
  • (v. i.) To err in judgment; to be mistaken.
  • (v. i.) To become unable to meet one's engagements; especially, to be unable to pay one's debts or discharge one's business obligation; to become bankrupt or insolvent.
  • (v. t.) To be wanting to ; to be insufficient for; to disappoint; to desert.
  • (v. t.) To miss of attaining; to lose.
  • (v. i.) Miscarriage; failure; deficiency; fault; -- mostly superseded by failure or failing, except in the phrase without fail.
  • (v. i.) Death; decease.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Intrathecal injection of zopiclone potentiated morphine antinociception, while the intracerebroventricular injection of zopiclone failed to enhance morphine antinociception and the intracerebroventricular injection of flumazepil to antagonize the intraperitoneal-zopiclone-induced increase in morphine antinociception.
  • (2) However, ticks, which failed to finish their feeding and represent a disproportionately great part of the whole parasite's population, die together with them and the parasitic system quickly restores its stability.
  • (3) The inquiry found the law enforcement agencies routinely fail to record the professions of those whose communications data records they access under Ripa.
  • (4) It is suggested that the normal cyclical release of LH is inhibited in PCO disease by a negative feedback by androgens to the hypothalamus or the pituitary, and that wedge resection should be reserved for patients in whom other forms of treatment have failed.
  • (5) Endoscopic retrograde cholangiography failed to demonstrate any bile ducts in the right postero-lateral segments of the liver, the "naked segment sign".
  • (6) Several efforts to extradite Polanski to California have failed.
  • (7) Administration of aminonucleoside and daunomycin produced proteinuria but did not cause a decrease in lipid P. Anticollagen and anti-lymphocyte sera that attached to the basement membrane but failed to produce proteinuria, also failed to affect the phospholipid content.
  • (8) An official inquiry into the Rotherham abuse scandal blamed failings by Rotherham council and South Yorkshire police.
  • (9) Amid the acrimony of the failed debate on the Malaysia Agreement, something was missed or forgotten: many in the left had changed their mind.
  • (10) Four of the nine patients failed to show any clinical or hematological improvement.
  • (11) In cases in which CT was also performed, it revealed corresponding hypodensities in two infarctions, but failed to reveal the foci of gliosis (or noncavital infarction), demyelination, or brain cyst.
  • (12) Even in the failed cases, 25-42% of subjects considered the treatment as good.
  • (13) Dzeko he has failed to hold down a starting berth since his £27m move in January 2011.
  • (14) Prothrombin isolation on DEAE Sephadex failed to separate the abnormal population (prothrombin Clamart) from the normal one.
  • (15) The starting point is the idea that the current system, because it works against biodiversity but fails to increase productivity, is broken.
  • (16) Other than failing to get a goal, I couldn’t ask for anything more.” From Lambert’s perspective there was an element of misfortune about the first and third goals, with Willian benefitting from handy ricochets on both occasions.
  • (17) In contrast, albino rats and rabbits failed to succumb to overt disease by subcutaneous and intraperitoneal routes of inoculation.
  • (18) It was recently demonstrated that MRL-lpr lymphoid cells transferred into lethally irradiated MRL- +mice unexpectedly failed to induce the early onset of lupus syndrome and massive lymphadenopathy of the donor, instead they caused a severe wasting syndrome resembling graft-vs-host (GvH) disease.
  • (19) In the controlled wound care group, only three ulcers in three patients achieved complete healing; the remaining 24 ulcers in 20 patients failed to achieve even 50% healing in the stipulated 3-month period.
  • (20) The former Stoke City manager Pulis had reportedly been left frustrated by the club failing to push through deals for various players he targeted to strengthen the Palace squad.