connive

verb

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

   “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.””

2. (intransitive, rare)Of parts of a plant: to be converging or in close contact; to be connivent.

   “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, [...]”

3. (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.

   “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.”

4. (intransitive, obsolete)To open and close the eyes rapidly; to wink.

   “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.”