Complicit means involved with others in something wrong. Complicit in the cover-up, silently complicit, complicit by silence.
It reaches people who did nothing themselves: staying silent while knowing is the standard charge, which is what makes the word so uncomfortable and so useful. It takes in. Note complicity, which came first — complicit was made from it backwards, on the pattern of explicit; and that the Latin means folded together.
1adjectivecomplicitInvolved with others in something wrong.
“The report found that several senior officers were complicit in the cover-up.”
synonyms: implicated, involved
complicit is a quality of involvement in wrong.
A back-formation from complicity, from Latin complicare, to fold together. Complicate and pliable come from the same folding.
Most likely a a back-formation from complicity, under the influence of words such as explicit, as though the suffix -ity were composed of -it (from Latin -itus) and -y.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA