Word Confusion: Connive versus Conspire

Posted October 24, 2019 by kddidit in Author Resources, Self-Editing, Word Confusions, Writing

Revised as of 29 March 2022

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Hoo, boy, the difference between connive versus conspire is subtle.

A person who connives pretends not to know — la-di-dah, as they whistle innocently — while others plot and plan.

A person who conspires knows damn well what they’re all plotting.

Word Confusions…

…started as my way of dealing with a professional frustration with properly spelled words that were out of context in manuscripts I was editing as well as books I was reviewing. It evolved into a sharing of information with y’all. I’m hoping you’ll share with us words that have been a bête noir for you from either end.

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Connive	Conspire
To the Gas Chambers by sbluerock is under the CC BY-NC-SA license, via VisualHunt. — Nazi soldiers and the German people connived at mass murder during World War II.	Image from page 260 of Tales of the Covenanters, 1895, is courtesy of Internet Archive Book Images and has no known copyright restrictions, via Flickr. — Each knowingly conspires with the others.
Part of Grammar:
Verb, intransitive Third person present verb: connives Past tense or past participle: connived Gerund or present participle: conniving	Verb, intransitive & transitive; Verb, reciprocal Third person present verb: conspires Past tense or past participle: conspired Gerund or present participle: conspiring
[connive at, connive in] Secretly allow something considered immoral, illegal, wrong, or harmful to occur [Usually connive to do something] Conspire to do something considered immoral, illegal, or harmful [Often followed by with] Conspire To avoid noticing something that one is expected to oppose or condemn [Usually followed by at] Give aid to wrongdoing by forbearing to act or speak [Usually followed by at] To be indulgent toward something others oppose or criticize To pretend to be ignorant of something in order to escape blame [Archaic] To open and close the eyes rapidly To wink	Verb, intransitive: Make secret plans jointly to commit an unlawful or harmful act [Of events or circumstances] Seem to be working together to bring about a particular result, typically to someone’s detriment Verb, transitive: To plot something unlawful or harmful To try to bring about Verb, reciprocal: If two or more people or groups conspire to do something illegal or harmful, they make a secret agreement to do it
Examples:
You have it in your power to connive at my escape. The government had connived with security forces in permitting murder. They connived to take over the business. The policeman connived at traffic violations. You should not connive at childlike exaggerations. “The artist is to teach them how to nod judiciously, and to connive with either eye.” – Spectator	Verb, intransitive: They conspired against him. They deny conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service. Everything conspires to exacerbate the situation. They conspired to kill the president. Verb, transitive: Theories of cognition and the experimental tasks used to test those theories often conspire hand in hand to overlook limited search and stopping rules. “Nor angry clouds conspire your overthrow” (Bishop Hall,”Defiance of Envy”). Verb, reciprocal: They’d conspired to overthrow the government. The defendant was accused of conspiring with his brother to commit robberies.
Derivatives:
Adjective: conniving, unconnived, unconniving Adverb: connivingly Noun: connivance, conniver	Adjective: conspiring, nonconspiring Adverb: conspiringly Noun: conspiracy, conspiration, conspirer Verb: preconspire, preconspired, preconspiring
History of the Word:
Early 17th century, from the French conniver or the Latin connivere meaning shut the eyes (to), from con- (together) + an unrecorded word related to nictare (to wink).	Late Middle English from the Old French conspirer, which is from the Latin conspirare meaning agree, plot, from con- (together with) + spirare (breathe).

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C’mon, get it out of your system, bitch, whine, moan . . . which words are your pet peeves? Also, please note that I try to be as accurate as I can, but mistakes happen or I miss something. Email me if you find errors, so I can fix them . . . and we’ll all benefit!

Satisfy your curiosity about other Word Confusions on its homepage or more generally explore the index of self-editing posts. You may also want to explore Book Layout & Formatting Ideas, Formatting Tips, Grammar Explanations, Linguistics, Publishing Tips, the Properly Punctuated, Writing Ideas and Resources, and Working Your Website.

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