What does connive mean?
To connive is to be secretly complicit in wrongdoing — either by actively plotting with others behind the scenes or, more commonly, by pretending not to notice misconduct one could and perhaps should have prevented. An official might connive at fraud by ignoring suspicious accounts; two executives might connive to fix a deal away from public scrutiny. The word carries a strong negative charge and belongs chiefly to formal, journalistic, and legal registers: it implies more than mere negligence, suggesting deliberate, culpable blindness or covert cooperation. This force comes partly from its origin: it derives from the Latin connivere, literally 'to shut the eyes', so the word's imagery of wilful looking-away is built into its history. Related forms include the noun connivance, which names the practice itself, as in the phrase 'with the connivance of the authorities'. Because it captures a subtle form of guilt — guilt by calculated silence — connive remains a precise and valuable word for describing corruption that thrives on pretended innocence.
verbTo secretly allow or ignore wrongdoing, often by pretending not to see it; or to conspire with others in a secret scheme.
- To pretend not to see or tacitly allow something illegal or improper; to be deliberately complicit through willful blindness (usually 'connive at' something).
- To cooperate secretly with others in an underhand scheme; to plot together.
"Managers were accused of conniving at the falsification of safety reports for years."
"The auditor suspected that senior staff had connived at the embezzlement by overlooking glaring irregularities."
"The two rivals quietly connived to block the reform before it reached the board."
Connive literally comes from a Latin verb meaning 'to close the eyes' — so when officials connive at corruption, they are doing exactly what the word has always described: shutting their eyes on purpose.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of connive
Connive derives from the Latin verb connivere, formed from the prefix com- ('together') and a base associated with winking or closing the eyes. In its earliest English uses in the early seventeenth century it retained this literal flavor, describing the deliberate shutting of the eyes to something. The modern senses — tacitly permitting wrongdoing and secretly plotting with others — developed naturally from that image of purposeful blindness. The noun connivance was formed from the same source and remains the word's most common companion form.
Related word forms
How connive is actually used
Connive is a formal or literary word and is almost always pejorative — it implies secret, culpable cooperation or deliberate looking away. The intransitive sense 'to scheme' is less common today than the pattern 'connive at something', where the subject enables wrongdoing passively rather than actively committing it.
Easily confused with connive
"Connive" means to secretly permit or plot wrongdoing, while "contrive" means simply to devise or create something cleverly, usually without any dishonest implication.