connive

Verb

connive (third-person singular simple present connives, present participle conniving, simple past and past participle connived)

1. (intransitive) To secretly cooperate with other people in order to commit a crime or other wrongdoing; to collude, to conspire.
   • I might say, / That who despairs, acts; that who acts, connives / With God's relations set in time and space; [...]1844, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “A Drama of Exile”, in Poems. […], volume I, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 7
   • This very Law of Libel provides that "if any one connives with a guilty man and alleges him to be innocent, he renders himself liable to punishment."1876 June 24, “The Law of Libel”, in The Japan Mail. A Fortnightly Summary of Intelligence from Japan, for Transmission to Europe and the United States, via Suez and San Francisco, volume VII, number...
2. (intransitive, rare) Of parts of a plant: to be converging or in close contact; to be connivent.
   • This species [...] differs from other species of this genus in the upper pinnæ being contracted, which are sinuously lobed, each lacinæ and lobe bearing a sorus, furnished with a nearly orbicular indusium, the free exterior margin of which connives with the margin of the lobe, [...]1875, John Smith, “118.—Nephrolepis, Schott. (1834).: Hook Sp. Fil.”, in Historia Filicum; an Exposition on the Nature, Number, and Organography of Ferns, […], London: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC, part 2...
3. (intransitive, obsolete) Often followed by at: to pretend to be ignorant of something in order to escape blame; to ignore or overlook a fault deliberately.
   • For ſince the affairs of the world have in them the varieties and perplexities beſides, it happens that in ſome caſes men know not how to govern by the ſtricteſt meaſures of religion, becauſe all men will not do their duty upon that account; and therefore laws are not made [...] with exact and...1659, Jeremy Taylor, Ductor Dubitantium, 2nd edition, London: Printed by Roger Norton, for Richard Royston, […], published 1671, →OCLC, Question V. Whether is to be Obeyed, the Prince or the Bishop...
   • Though all this Good be found in thee, I an offended that thou ſo conniveſt at the Hereſie of the falſe Teachers, as to permit ſome of them in your Communion, [...]1695, Richard Baxter, “The Revelation of St. John the Divine, chapter 2, verse 14”, in A Paraphrase on the New Testament, with Notes, Doctrinal and Practical. […], 2nd corrected edition, London...

   Synonyms:

   dissimulate, look the other way, shut one's eyes, turn a blind eye, wink

4. (intransitive, obsolete) To open and close the eyes rapidly; to wink.
   • The artist is to teach them how to nod judiciously, and to connive with either eye, and, in a word, the whole practice of political grimace.1712 February 29 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “MONDAY, February 19, 1711–1712”, in The Spectator, number 305; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The...