Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To cooperate secretly in an illegal or wrongful action; collude: The dealers connived with customs officials to bring in narcotics.
- v. To scheme; plot.
- v. To feign ignorance of or fail to take measures against a wrong, thus implying tacit encouragement or consent: The guards were suspected of conniving at the prisoner's escape.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To wink.
- Hence To wink, or refrain from looking, in a figurative sense, as at a culpable person or act; give aid or encouragement by silence or forbearance; conceal knowledge of a fault or wrong: followed by at (formerly sometimes with on).
- To be in secret complicity; have a furtive or clandestine understanding: followed by with: as, to connive with one in a wrongful act.
- To waive objection; act as if satisfied; acquiesce: used absolutely.
- To tamper: followed by with.
- To shut one's eyes to; wink at; tacitly permit.
- In biology, to be connivent.
Wiktionary
- v. to cooperate with others secretly in order to commit a crime; to collude
- v. to plot or scheme
- v. to pretend to be ignorant of something in order to escape blame
- v. to be a wench
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. obsolete To open and close the eyes rapidly; to wink.
- v. To close the eyes upon a fault; to wink (at); to fail or forbear by intention to discover an act; to permit a proceeding, as if not aware of it; -- usually followed by
at . - v. R. & Obs. To shut the eyes to; to overlook; to pretend not to see.
WordNet 3.0
- v. encourage or assent to illegally or criminally
- v. form intrigues (for) in an underhand manner
Etymologies
- Circa 1600, from French conniver, from Latin connīveō ("wink"), or directly from Latin, from com- ("together") + base akin to nictō ("I wink"), from Proto-Indo-European *knei-gwh- (“to bend”). See also English nictate ("to wink"), from same Latin base. (Wiktionary)
- Latin cōnīvēre, connīvēre, to close the eyes. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Not sure what you mean by 'connive' as we have not been in government when these decisions were taken.”
“I should have realized Belinda is too simple to deceive and connive.”
“Negligent parents leave their children with uncouth friends, relatives or even strangers, who in turn connive with witches to kill the children for money.”
“If we connive, it makes no difference whether the torture has been outsourced or perpetrated close to home in Birmingham.”
The Guardian: The Birmingham Six: Have we learned from our disgraceful past?
“She will connive and she will lie and she will wheedle her way in as far as she can wheedle, further than you can imagine, until — — oh, I don't know — — she has the password to your SL account.”
"We think we've climbed so high, Up all the backs we've condemned..."
“As David Gardner, veteran Middle East correspondent for that communist rag the Financial Times: "If we continue to connive in the survival of tyranny, we abet the onward march of the jihadis for whom Western policy is their most consistently reliable ally.”
“Two of his daughters connive and flatter him, while his youngest, Cordelia, refuses to put her affection to such a test.”
“How you obsess and grieve and connive for your tender hearts.”
“There is a memorable scene in the film in which a villager holding a tattered official copy of a 2004 speech on the environment by China’s President Hu Jintao points to a passage from the speech about the legal liability of officials who “connive to ruin and pollute the environment,” and says “President Hu Jintao’s own words!”
The Huffington Post: Alex Wang: New Documentary Follows the Struggle to Save China's Environment
“But they do not and their shareholders connive in the excess.”
The Guardian: Words won't change capitalism. So be daring and do something | Will Hutton
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘connive’.
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June Words
Words for June
connive, incessant, premeditated, malice, malicious, spite, vindictive, vindicate, vengeance, obstinately, assiduous, attentive and 14 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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Go over
mollify, obstinate, obviate, occlude, onerous, obscure, paragon, pedantic, perfunctory, placate, placid, prodigal and 364 more...
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SAT words
abase, abate, abet, abject, abjure, abrogate, abscond, abstruse, accolade, accommodating, accost, accretion and 202 more...
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the first list
an immense, grandiloquent list that loads like a thousand years sentence in stone. new words are in the other lists.
ridiculous, brummagem, predicament, sanctimonious, vapid, eschew, admonish, auspicious, capitulation, enumerate, lachrymose, tenet and 1648 more...
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amagnano's Words
truculent, churlish, antipathy, sociopathy, loquacious, disheveled, pouilly-fuisse, enamored, marked, assuage, ascetic, pagan and 190 more...
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Words I Know
List of most of the words I've learned
garner, abase, abate, abdicate, abduct, aberration, abet, abhor, abide, abject, abjure, abnegation and 1046 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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Vocab
Words that I come across, and go blank, or want to clarify.
nefarious, edifice, malevolent, ostensible, folderol, bauble, livid, amnesty, calculus, saddlery, maisonette, cuisse and 423 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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Loaded Dice
Off the straight and narrow; less than straight arrow.
chicanery, sophistry, pilfer, rook, diddle, fleece, grift, poach, rustle, pinch, abscond, steal and 140 more...
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GRE list 1
Bloviate, Bacchanalia, mirth, covet, inconsequential, prescient, heresy, revelry, modality, gentrify, vitiate, tantalize and 182 more...
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SAT PSAT ALPHABETICAL C
cabal, cache, cacophony, cadaverous, cadence, cajole, callous, callow, calumny, calvary, camaraderie, canard and 199 more...
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TheLastGoodNameLeft
The Last Good Words Left
ephemera, gammon, errata, ellipses, octopi, heteronormative, polyp, intersectionality, theses, california, halfback, fullback and 555 more...
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From Book - SAT & College Dictionary ...
ebb, exotic, immure, abeyance, panegyric, debonair, protege, dissipate, frantic, penitent, abject, edify and 871 more...
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Hodges English 10 Vocab
All the vocab will get in class over the year.
aberration, acrimony, adduce, anthropomorphous, caitiff, chagrin, clement, connote, deluge, deride, dissemble, edify and 213 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for connive.

fbharjo from latin: conniveo, -nixi to wink at: a twinkle with the eye Mar 16, 2009