Skip to content
ARCHIEENGLISH
LearnPlayWordsRanking
  • Learn
  • Play
  • Words
  • Ranking
  • Mine
← Vocabulary

connivance

UK/kəˈnaɪvəns/US/kəˈnaɪvəns/
nounC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,985 of 15,258leans written

Connivance is willing co-operation in something wrong. With the connivance of officials, active connivance, deny any connivance.

The word covers a particular kind of guilt: not doing the thing, but letting it happen when you could have stopped it. The Latin inside it means winking, which is exactly the picture — a deliberate failure to look.

Definitions of connivance

  1. 1nounconnivanceWilling co-operation in something wrong.C2

    “The smuggling went on for years with the connivance of corrupt customs officers.”

connivance is a complicity.

Where it comes from

Latin conniventia comes from connivere, to shut the eyes or wink at something.

  1. Latin

    connīventia

  2. English, today

    connivance

Built from

  • connīvēns · Latin — winking

From early 18, replaced earlier form connivence (late 16), from Latin connīventia, from connīvēns (“winking”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

connivance in the wild

  • The plan was to assassinate Henry in Canterbury, and allegedly William had knowledge of this plot or was in connivance with the mercenaries.

    William I of Boulogne

  • A legal finding of connivance may be made when an accuser has assisted in the act about which they are complaining.

    Connivance

  • State crimes are crimes committed on behalf of or with the connivance of governments.

    State crime

  • In May 1896, Dizon was part of the committee that the Katipunan formed to secure arms from Japan with the connivance of a Japanese ship captain.

    José Dizon

  • An account stated that Lenin dominated this group through his connivance with Taratuta, Manev, and Zinoviev.

    Bolshevik Centre

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.