Other forms: confederates
A confederate is a secret partner in a scheme. The magician's confederate, act as a confederate, a confederate in the audience.
A stage magician's confederate is a planted helper the audience takes for a stranger, and psychology experiments use the same word for the same trick. Capitalised, a Confederate was a soldier of the southern states in the American Civil War.
1nounconfederateA secret partner in a scheme.
“The pickpocket's confederate distracted the tourist while he took her purse.”
confederate is a partner.
Latin confoederatus means joined by a league — con, together, plus foedus, a treaty. Federal is a relative.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰeydʰ-
Latin
cōnfoederātus
Middle English
confederat — confederated, allied, associated in a plot; united or bound, as in friendship or troth
English, today
confederate
1387, in Middle english; Middle English confederat (“confederated, allied, associated in a plot; united or bound, as in friendship or troth”), borrowed from Latin cōnfoederātus perfect passive participle of cōnfoederō, see -ate and -ate. Regular participial usage of the adjective up until Early Modern English. by surface analysis, con- + federate.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA