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Connive

//kəˈnaɪv// verb

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To secretly cooperate with other people in order to commit a crime or other wrongdoing; to collude, to conspire. intransitive

    "I might say, / That who despairs, acts; that who acts, connives / With God's relations set in time and space; [...]"

  2. 2
    form intrigues (for) in an underhand manner wordnet
  3. 3
    Of parts of a plant: to be converging or in close contact; to be connivent. intransitive, rare

    "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, [...]"

  4. 4
    encourage or assent to illegally or criminally wordnet
  5. 5
    Often followed by at: to pretend to be ignorant of something in order to escape blame; to ignore or overlook a fault deliberately. intransitive, obsolete

    "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."

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  1. 6
    To open and close the eyes rapidly; to wink. intransitive, obsolete

    "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."

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”)).

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