(n.) One who forsakes his party or his principles; a renegade; an apostate.
Example Sentences:
(1) Messina Denaro was also part of the gang that in 1993 snatched Giuseppe di Matteo, the 11-year-old son of a turncoat.
(2) Photograph: Mimi Mollica for the Guardian Antonino Vaccarino, a sprightly, bespectacled 68-year-old, today runs a small cinema in the back streets of town, but once served as mayor before being jailed for five years for mafia membership – on the basis, he claims, of false accusations made by a turncoat.
(3) Several members of his unit expressed dismay on Monday that a man they considered a turncoat would be hailed as a hero instead of being punished for allegedly abandoning his post and indirectly causing the death of other soldiers.
(4) Is new Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull already a climate change turncoat?
(5) And now St Vince of Cable has been busted down from visionary analyst of recession to turncoat enabler of George Osborne's austerity measures.
(6) "We have never found one, but many turncoats have spoken of them.
(7) With another Tory MP announcing that he will be leaving the Commons and pointedly wishing Carswell luck – the turncoat seeming more secure in his position, not less – others may see a brighter future with Farage.
(8) The right can’t forgive the Lib Dems for what it sees as their halo-polishing sanctimony; to the left they’re bedroom-tax enablers, tuition-fee turncoats, the sort of chancers who marched against the Iraq war only to turn around in power and vote to bomb Syria.
(9) Although embarrassing at the time, it helpfully portrayed Gove as a reluctant, rather than calculating, turncoat.
(10) Quite frankly, I think both positions are irresponsible.” Trudeau’s search for a disappearing middle ground met disaster earlier this week when Toronto Liberals rejected Eve Adams – a Tory turncoat the leader had hoped to nominate as one of his own candidates.
(11) In the case of the country’s far-right scene – whose membership the BfV estimates to number 23,850 as of last year – these informants are not simply turncoats who make some money on the side by giving tips to police.
(12) Prosecutors have also sought permission to seize the assets of entrepreneur Carmelo Patti, a former owner of the Valtur holiday village group, who has been accused by turncoats of being a front man for Messina Denaro.