Word.ws English Dictionary

betray with a kiss

betray with a kiss verb: of Judas, to kiss Jesus so as to discreetly signal to Roman soldiers that Jesus was the Christ, and as such was the one to be arrested.

betray with a kiss: of Judas, to kiss Jesus so as to discreetly signal to Roman soldiers that Jesus was the Christ, and...
Image: Grandes Heures d'Anne de Bretagne 1500-1520, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

betray with a kiss (third-person singular simple present betrays with a kiss, present participle betraying with a kiss, simple past and past participle betrayed with a kiss)

  1. (set phrase) Of Judas, to kiss Jesus so as to discreetly signal to Roman soldiers that Jesus was the Christ, and as such was the one to be arrested.
  2. (idiomatic) To betray someone in a seemingly inconspicuous or innocuous manner.
    • One man caught on a barbed-wire fence;
      one man, he resist[s].
      One man washed on an empty beach;
      one man betrayed with a kiss.1984 October 1, “Pride (In The Name Of Love)”, in The Unforgettable Fire, performed by U2

Forms of betray with a kiss

third-person singular presentbetrays with a kiss
present participlebetraying with a kiss
past participlebetrayed with a kiss
pastbetrayed with a kiss

Origin of betray with a kiss

The term comes from the Gospel of Luke chapter 22, verse 48 of the New Testament: ⁴⁷ While He was still speaking, a crowd arrived, led by the man called Judas, one of the Twelve. He approached Jesus to kiss Him. ⁴⁸ But Jesus asked him, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?” The Gospel of Luke, Berean Standard Bible.

Questions about betray with a kiss

What does betray with a kiss mean?
Betray with a kiss means of Judas, to kiss Jesus so as to discreetly signal to Roman soldiers that Jesus was the Christ, and as such was the one to be arrested.
What part of speech is betray with a kiss?
Betray with a kiss is a verb.
What is the past tense of betray with a kiss?
The past tense of betray with a kiss is betrayed with a kiss.

Words near betray with a kiss in the dictionary

  1. betrash
  2. betravail
  3. betravel
  4. Betrawati
  5. betray
  6. betray with a kiss
  7. betray'd
  8. betrayable
  9. betrayal
  10. betrayals
  11. betrayed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: betray with a kiss (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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