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stab in the back, a
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Idioms and Phrases
A betrayal of trust, an act of treachery, as in Voting against our bill at the last minute was a real stab in the back . It is also put as stab someone in the back , meaning “betray someone.” For example, Don't trust George; he's been known to stab his friends in the back . Both the noun and verb forms of this idiom, alluding to a physical attack when one's back is turned, date from the early 1900s.Advertisement
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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