connive
/kəˈnaɪv/ verb
Forms connives conniving connived
- verb (intransitive) To secretly cooperate with other people in order to commit a crime or other wrongdoing; to collude, to conspire.
- verb (intransitive, botany, rare) Of parts of a plant: to be converging or in close contact; to be connivent.
- verb (intransitive, obsolete) Often followed by at: to pretend to be ignorant of something in order to escape blame; to ignore or overlook a fault deliberately.
- verb (intransitive, obsolete) To open and close the eyes rapidly; to wink.
Synonyms
dissimulate look the other way shut one's eyes turn a blind eye wink scheme intrigue
Etymology
From French conniver (“to ignore and thus become complicit in wrongdoing”), or directly from its etymon Latin con(n)īvēre (“close or screw up the eyes, blink, wink; overlook, turn a blind eye, connive”) (perhaps alluding to two persons involved in a scheme together winking to each other), from con- (prefix indicating a being or bringing together of several objects) + *nīvēre (related to nictō (“to blink, wink”), from Proto-Indo-European *kneygʷʰ- (“to bend, droop”)).
Webster’s 1913
- verb To open and close the eyes rapidly; to wink. [Obs.]
- verb 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. To connive at what it does not approve. Jer. Taylor.
- verb To shut the eyes to; to overlook; to pretend not to see. [R. & Obs.] "Divorces were not connived only, but with eye open allowed." Milton.
Etymology [L. connivere to shut the eues, connive, fr. con- + (perh.) a word akin to nicere to beckon, nictare to wink.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “connive”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details