conniving

comparative more conniving · superlative most conniving

1. That connives; conspiratorial.First known use 1780s

   I waited. Then those two / Strange pilgrims of the sanctuaries of sin / Brought from beneath their large conniving cloaks / Two hidden baskets brimming with rich store / Of broken viands — pasties, jellies, meats, / Crumbs of Belshazzar's table, evil waste / Of that interminable nightly feast […]

   1902, Edith Wharton, The Bread of Angels

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of connive

   1 more example

   Mr. Brezhnev departed drastically from the recent Soviet propaganda line, which has attacked the United States for conniving in the Chinese invasion, as some Soviet press comments have put it. He did say that “the entire danger of any forms of connivance with that policy is more evident now than ever before.” But he did not mention the United States in this context and did not develop the argument voiced constantly by official spokesmen since the invasion that China had been emboldened by its reconciliation with the United States and that the Carter Administration had, in effect, encouraged the Chinese attack.

   1979 March 3 [1979 March 2], Leonid I. Brezhnev, quotee, “BREZHNEV CONDEMNS CHINESE, BUT VOICES NO MILITARY THREAT”, in The New York Times, sourced from Moscow, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 21 Mar 2025, page 1