The etymological origin of the term betray that now concerns us we have to state that it is found in Latin. It is exactly the result of the sum of the following components:
-The prefix “de-“, which is synonymous with “from top to bottom”.
-The adjective “latus”, which can be translated as “carried”.
-The suffix “-ar”, which is used to determine verbs.
According to the first meaning collected by the Royal Spanish Academy ( RAE ) in its dictionary, snitching refers to voluntarily reporting a crime to an authority, pointing out the person responsible so that he receives punishment.
- Abbreviationfinder: Find definitions of English word – Christian. Commonly used abbreviations related to word are also included.
For example: “Don’t worry, I’m not going to rat you out”, “The man was planning to rat on his partner, but was killed before he could get to the police station”, “If you ever have the silly idea to rat me out, remember that I have many friends and you have family…”.
Let us suppose that a young man observes how his neighbor breaks the door of a commercial premises and enters to steal various elements. Then he runs away and takes refuge in his house. Faced with this situation, the witness decides to go to the police station to denounce the offender : that is, he gives a statement to a police officer where he details everything he saw.
In the same way, we come across the fact that snitching is not always something that a person does up front and showing their identity. On numerous occasions, citizens who have information and data to report someone for a committed crime choose to do so in a hidden way. By this we mean that they make a phone call to the police from a phone that cannot be identified and distorting their voice, as we have seen in numerous movies.
Moreover, on other occasions what they do is send the authorities the graphic or written evidence they have about who has committed the crime without leaving a record of their identity.
If they hide their name and surnames, it may be because they fear reprisals, because they do not want their identity to be made public, because they do not want to be involved in the crime in question, because they belong to the circle of the alleged offender…
Reporting can also consist of reporting a fault to an authority or a hierarchical superior. A student can tell on a classmate to the teacher, telling her that she is copying her answers on a test. An employee who tells his boss that another worker often falls asleep during work hours is also ratting on someone else.
The idea of snitching can even refer to making something public that is reprehensible or that, for some reason, another person does not want to be known. A journalist, to cite one case, can give away on his TV program a famous actor whom he saw in a restaurant having dinner with his lover.
Among the synonyms of betraying are accusing, incriminating, denouncing, snitching, blowing or betraying. However, among its antonyms we come across hide, cover, shut up, cover, cover up or cloak, for example.