Other forms: double-crossed, double-crosses, double-crossing
To double-cross somebody is to betray the very person you were plotting with. Two thieves agree to split the money, and one of them takes all of it.
The word is specific and worth keeping specific: this is not ordinary betrayal but betrayal by an accomplice, which is why heist films are built on it. It works as a noun as well — the double-cross at the end of the film — and the person who does it is a double-crosser. It carries a faint scent of the 1940s crime novel, and that flavour is much of why writers still reach for it.
1verbdouble-crossTo betray someone you had agreed to act with.
“He double-crossed his own partner and vanished with the cash.”
synonyms: betray
2nounplanAn act of betraying a partner in a plan.
“Nobody saw the double-cross coming.”
First recorded in 1834 from thieves' slang cross (or on the cross) to refer to something dishonest, a play on straight or square: a crook going back on his partners would therefore be crossing the crossers, or double-crossing.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 15 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word