Word.ws English Dictionary

turn-coat

turn-coat is the alternative form of turncoat.

Meaning of turncoat

Noun

turncoat (plural turncoats)

  1. A traitor; one who turns against a previous affiliation or allegiance.
    • But some will cry Turncoat, and rip up old stories, / How I always pretended to be for the tories: […]1711 [December?] (date written), Jonathan Swift, “An Excellent New Song. Being the Intended Speech of a Famous Orator against Peace [i.e., Daniel Finch, 2nd Earl of Nottingham].”, in Thomas Sheridan...

See all 2 meanings of turncoat

Forms of turn-coat

pluralturn-coats

Questions about turn-coat

What is turn-coat the alternative form of?
Turn-coat is the alternative form of turncoat.

Words near turn-coat in the dictionary

  1. turn-around
  2. turn-arounds
  3. turn-based
  4. turn-by-turn
  5. turn-by-turn navigation
  6. turn-coat
  7. turn-coats
  8. turn-key
  9. turn-off
  10. turn-off time
  11. turn-off times

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: turn-coat (page history and authors); turncoat (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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Cite this entry: “turn-coat.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/turn-coat. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.