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cabal

UK/kəˈbɑːl/US/kəˈbɑːl/
nounC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,272 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: cabals

A cabal is a small secret group plotting together. A shadowy cabal, a cabal of ministers, run by a cabal.

It is always hostile and is a favourite word of conspiracy theories, which is worth noticing before using it. It came to English through French from the Hebrew name for a tradition of mystical teaching.

Definitions of cabal

  1. 1nouncabalA small secret group plotting together.C2

    “A small cabal of senior officers secretly planned to overthrow the president.”

cabal is a group.

Where it comes from

French cabale comes through Medieval Latin from Hebrew qabbalah, meaning received tradition.

  1. Hebrew

    קַבָּלָה — Jewish mysticism

  2. Medieval Latin

    cabbala

  3. French

    cabale

  4. English, today

    cabal

From French cabale, from Medieval Latin cabbala, which in turn is derived from Hebrew קַבָּלָה (“Jewish mysticism”) literally “reception, something received” (such as knowledge). a doublet of Kabbalah, as well as, more distantly, ghibli.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

cabal in the wild

  • The backbone cabal was an informal organization of large-site news server administrators of the worldwide distributed newsgroup-based discussion system Usenet.

    Backbone cabal

  • Grossman writes that its appearance on the alt.usenet.cabal FAQ reflects conspiracy accusations as old as the Internet itself.

    There Is No Cabal

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.