connive
Part of speech: verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: biology
botany
natural-sciences
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”)).
Inflected forms:
form: connives
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: conniving
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: connived
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: connived
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: To secretly cooperate with other people in order to commit a crime or other wrongdoing; to collude, to conspire.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: I might say, / That who despairs, acts; that who acts, connives / With God's relations set in time and space; [...]
This very Law of Libel provides that "if any one connives with a guilty man and alleges him to be innocent, he renders himself liable to punishment."
The Christchurch City Council has connived with the Government to take over all the surrounding local bodies, and it is not without comment that none of the Labour members from Christchurch has spoken on the Bill.
While some of Joe [Kennedy]'s classmates had connived to get into battle, joining the French Foreign Legion or the Canadian forces, Joe connived to get out.
“I don't know how I would have gotten through this without you.” “Oh, the feeling is mutual. I've always schemed and connived alone. But as a duo, it is, as you might say, "totes ridic!"” “(gasps) I would say that.”
gloss: Of parts of a plant: to be converging or in close contact; to be connivent.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
rare
examples: This species [...] differs from other species of this genus in the upper pinnæ being contracted, which are sinuously lobed, each lacinæ and lobe bearing a sorus, furnished with a nearly orbicular indusium, the free exterior margin of which connives with the margin of the lobe, [...]
gloss: Often followed by at: to pretend to be ignorant of something in order to escape blame; to ignore or overlook a fault deliberately.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
obsolete
examples: For ſince the affairs of the world have in them the varieties and perplexities beſides, it happens that in ſome caſes men know not how to govern by the ſtricteſt meaſures of religion, becauſe all men will not do their duty upon that account; and therefore laws are not made [...] with exact and pureſt meaſures, but in compliance and by neceſſity, not always as well as they ſhould, but as well as they may: and therefore the Civil power is forc'd ſometimes to connive at what it does not approve.
Though all this Good be found in thee, I an offended that thou ſo conniveſt at the Hereſie of the falſe Teachers, as to permit ſome of them in your Communion, [...]
Nor can we reaſonably think, that Chriſt ſo waſhed us from our Sins in his own Blood, that we might wallow more ſecurely in them; or that he freeth us from the Guilt and Puniſhment, and conniveth at the Filth and Practice of them.
That the evils in India have solely arisen from the court of proprietors is grossly false. In many of these, the directors were heartily concurring; in most of them, they were encouraging, and sometimes commanding; in all they were conniving.
A nation of hardy archers and spearmen might, with small risk to its liberties, connive at some illegal acts on the part of a prince whose general administration was good, and whose throne was not defended by a single company of regular soldiers.
Out of reverence to Cato, he for a while connived her impurity and immodesty, but at length dismissed her.
gloss: To open and close the eyes rapidly; to wink.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
obsolete
examples: The artist is to teach them how to nod judiciously, and to connive with either eye, and, in a word, the whole practice of political grimace.
Related words: connivance
connivent
nictate
tolerate
turn a blind eye
Derived words: conniver
connivery
conniving
connivingly
Translations: