Connive vs Complicit - What's the difference?
connive | complicit |
to cooperate with others secretly in order to commit a crime; to collude
to plot or scheme
to pretend to be ignorant of something in order to escape blame; to ignore a fault deliberately
* Jeremy Taylor
* Burke
* Macaulay
(archaic) To open and close the eyes rapidly; to wink.
* Spectator
to be a wench
English control verbs
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Associated with or participating in an activity, especially one of a questionable nature.
* 1861 , Henry M. Wheeler, The Slaves' Champion ,
* 1973 , , As If by Magic , Secker and Warburg,
* 2005 , Larry Dennsion, "
As a verb connive
is to cooperate with others secretly in order to commit a crime; to collude.As an adjective complicit is
associated with or participating in an activity, especially one of a questionable nature.connive
English
Verb
(conniv)- to connive at what it does not approve
- In many of these, the directors were heartily concurring; in most of them, they were encouraging, and sometimes commanding; in all they were conniving .
- The government thought it expedient, occasionally, to connive at the violation of this rule.
- The artist is to teach them how to nod judiciously, and to connive with either eye.
References
complicit
English
Adjective
(en adjective)p. 203,
- It [slavery] has set the seal of a complicit , guilty silence upon the most orthodox pulpits and the saintliest tongues,
p. 177:
- "I confess," and the Englishman turned with a near complicit grin to Hamo, "I have certain vulgar tastes myself."
Letters," Time , 7 March:
- Khan's sale of nuclear secrets and a complicit Pakistani government have made the world a ticking time bomb.
