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Connive   Listen
verb
Connive  v. i.  (past & past part. connived; pres. part. conniving)  
1.
To open and close the eyes rapidly; to wink. (Obs.) "The artist is to teach them how to nod judiciously, and to connive with either eye."
2.
To close the eyes upon a fault; to wink (at); to fail or forbear by intention to discover an act; to permit a proceeding, as if not aware of it; usually followed by at. "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."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Connive" Quotes from Famous Books



... proposition ever had been submitted to a law-abiding citizen. I was asked to connive in the escape of a notorious criminal, and at one and the same time to embark upon an expedition patently burglarious! As though this were not enough, I was invited to beard Hassan of Aleppo, the most dreadful being I had ever encountered East or ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer

... quoth Mr. Bayard. "We'll organize ourselves, and we'll wait and watch. When they move, we meet them. Should they sell, we buy; should they buy,—which they won't,—we sell; in either event we buy or sell them to a standstill. Should they connive a 'bear' raid, they'll sell their way into as formidable a corner as ever ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... strife 460 With me hath end; all the contest is now 'Twixt God and Dagon; Dagon hath presum'd, Me overthrown, to enter lists with God, His Deity comparing and preferring Before the God of Abraham. He, be sure, Will not connive, or linger, thus provok'd, But will arise and his great name assert: Dagon must stoop, and shall e're long receive Such a discomfit, as shall quite despoil him Of all these boasted Trophies won on me, 470 And with confusion blank ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... halberd to ascertain his height, and, finding he is rather under the mark, he endeavours to reach it by rising on tiptoe. This artifice, to which he is impelled by towering ambition, the serjeant seems disposed to connive at—and the serjeant is a hero, and a great man in his way; "your hero always must be tall, ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler

... declared himself unable to connive longer at the sins daily committed against the country and his own conscience. He assured him that the government had been accustoming the country to panniers, in order that it might now accept patiently the saddle and bridle. For himself, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... The coachman, who might now and then feel some anxiety to proceed, would yet merely admonish his fare that the day was wearing on; but his scruples would vanish before a grace-cup, and he would even connive at a proposal to take a pipe of tobacco, before the horn was permitted to summon the passengers to resume their places. Hence the great caution observable in the newspaper advertisements of coach-travelling. We have now before ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne

... to pass through; but so bad is their name for treachery, ferocity, &c., that few, if any, of the traders between India and Central Asia go this route. They do not care a farthing for the Ameers, who also secretly connive at their proceedings, in order to draw recruits ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth

... fit that I should tell you, since I am your guest," she said, touching the scar with one finger. "That is the mark of my husband's hand, and I am leaving him forever because I would not connive at Geoffrey's ruin. Geoffrey is acting as trustee for my property, and I cannot leave for England without consulting him. So much is perhaps due to you, and—because of your kindness I should not like you to think too ill of me—I will tell you the ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... country with patrols—they raise up a cloud of hovering spies—no peasant, no farmer feels safe. Those who connive shudder at every passing troop, and see an informer in every stranger. Those who do not connive tremble lest they be struck as enemies of the criminal; and thus from bad to worse till no home is safe—no heart ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis

... I also am a subordinate, I shall be held responsible. And it isn't right, either, to connive at ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood

... fashion and character in distress, he would lend him fifty or a hundred pounds. When this is done, every art is used to debauch his principles; he is initiated into a gang of genteel sharpers, and bullied, by the fear of a gaol, to connive at, or to become a party in their iniquitous society. His good name gives a sanction for a while to their suspected reputations; and, by means of an hundred pounds so lent to this honest young man, some thousands are won from the birds of passage, who are continually passing thro' that city to ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse

... the vicinity of graveyards, or, like the dryads and hamadryads of the ancients, to frequent favourite forests and groves, and to inhabit particular trees, whence they sally out to seize on the passer by.[1] The Buddhist priests connive at demon worship because their efforts are ineffectual to suppress it, and the most orthodox Singhalese, whilst they confess its impropriety, are still driven to resort to it in ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... a real difficulty in saying what he wished; for the truth is, that when Mr. Berners had called Mr. Nye aside for a private interview, he had intended to offer him a heavy bribe to connive at the escape ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... off his father. In the meantime Leod hearing of Murdo's resorting to these bounds, that he was kindly entertained by some of the inhabitants, and fearing that he would withdraw the services and affections of the people from himself, and connive some mischief against him for his ill-usage of his father, he left no means untried to apprehend him, so that Mackenzie was obliged to start privately to Lochbroom, from whence, with only one companion, he went to his uncle, ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... had been of long standing, and carried on with the connivance of the coachman, of Gregorio,—who had before Mrs. Egremont's arrival acted as house steward,—and of the former cook. Indeed, it was the housekeeper whom Mrs. Egremont had left in charge, whose refusal to connive had brought about ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge

... problem is not so easy of solution. A train robbery is a pretty serious matter. I'm very grateful to him, but to connive at his escape is itself a punishable act. Why did you tell me? I could have ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland

... often encourage that vice and folly which it is their especial duty to repress; and it is well if, from their soft complying humour, they are not often drawn in to participate in what is wrong, as well as to connive at it. Thus their possessors are frequently, in the eye of truth and reason, bad magistrates, bad parents, bad friends; defective in those very qualities, which give to each of those several relations its chief and appropriate ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... this serious affair into legal hands, if only out of justice to Sherwood himself. More than once he had thought of communicating with Mr. Turnbull, but shame withheld him. It seemed improbable, too, that the solicitor would connive at keeping his friends at The Haws ignorant of what had befallen them, and with every day that passed Will felt more disposed to hide that catastrophe, if by any means that were possible. Already he had half ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing

... called "Shanghaiing." The practice is resorted to by landlords, to enable them to complete the crews which they have contracted to furnish to vessels. The owners and masters of these vessels are fully aware of the infamous manner in which men are procured for them, but say they must either connive at it, or let their vessels go to sea shorthanded. In "Shanghaiing" a sober man, resort is had to false promises. He is induced to go on board of a vessel, "to see how he likes her." He is then detained by force until the ship has left port. His true ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... those he has, those possessed of great authority with the soldiers: a Braccio, a Sforza, a Wallenstein. He lacks money for the most pressing needs, it is necessary to turn to great financiers, who have an established credit, and he must at the same time connive at their malversations. It is true that this unfortunate necessity arises most often from previous errors. It is not the same with God: he has need of no man, he commits no error, he always does the best. One cannot even wish that things ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz

... honest trade, the apostle's own calling"; but for any further liberties he referred them to the prelates of Canterbury and London. All that could be obtained from the King after the most diligent "sounding" was a verbal promise that "he would connive at them and not molest them, provided they conducted themselves peaceably; but to allow or tolerate them under his seal" he ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... beast, said Jehovah, shall be slain, and his flesh shall not be eaten. The owner must lose the whole of him as a testimony to the sacredness of human life, and a warning to all not to do any thing, or connive at any thing that tended to destroy it. But the owner, if he did not know that the beast was dangerous, and liable to kill, was not otherwise to be punished. But if he did know, if it had been testified to the owner that the beast was dangerous, and liable to kill, and he did ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... of the Board again mounted his invisible rostrum. "Do you mean to intimate that we are to falsify the record?" he declaimed. "To try to make liars out of hundreds of eyewitnesses? You ask us to distort the truth, to connive at ..." ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith

... this piece of service, was forced to connive at Saturninus, now proceeding to the very height of insolence and violence, and was, without knowing it, the instrument of mischief beyond endurance, the only course of which was through outrages and massacres to tyranny and the subversion of the government. Standing ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... Commons, in an endeavour to obtain new advantages at the expense of the other orders of the State, for the benefits of the Commons at large, have pursued strong measures; if it were not just, it was at least natural, that the constituents should connive at all their proceedings; because we were ourselves ultimately to profit. But when this submission is urged to us, in a contest between the representatives and ourselves, and where nothing can be put into their scale which is not taken from ours, they fancy us to be children when ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke

... and so short, that we cannot too soon bring the little it can yield into the great commonwealth of the Beautiful or the Honest; and both belong to and make up the Useful. But in politics, and in a highly artificial state, what doubts beset us! what darkness surrounds! If we connive at abuses, we juggle with our own reason and integrity—if we attack them, how much, how fatally we may derange that solemn and conventional ORDER which is the mainspring of the vast machine! How little, too, can one man, whose talents may not be in that coarse ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... replied Jenkin, "that I will presently to her, and learn if she has come fairly by so much ready money; for sooner than connive at her getting it by any indirection, I would hang myself at once. It is enough what I have done myself, no need to engage poor Margaret in such villainy—I'll to her, and tell her of ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... possession, and ask him whether he himself, so circumstanced, might not have felt as the Earl did—that the case was one for a sacrifice of punctilios in the face of the issues that turned upon their maintenance. Had he any right to connive at the procrastination of some wicked secret—for he had the clue—when a trivial sacrifice of self-respect might bring it to light? He could see that Mrs. Prichard must be the twin sister, somehow. But he ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... discipline wherein I was brought up. But this was enough to make me neglect the other lessons that were prescribed me; and here it was infinitely to my advantage, to have to do with an understanding tutor, who very well knew discreetly to connive at this and other truantries of the same nature; for by this means I ran through Virgil's AEneid, and then Terence, and then Plautus, and then some Italian comedies, allured by the sweetness of the subject; whereas had he been so foolish as to ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... devilish in the smile at Doltaire's lip's, but his look was wandering between Alixe and me, and he replied urbanely, "I have ambition yet—to connive at captivity"; and then he looked full and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... he said, "you don't understand the kind of a country you are in. Affairs of state here do not justify murder, and an elected public official cannot, even in the name diplomacy, connive at it. It is true that a Minister cannot very well be arrested, but a Minister can be disgraced, which is worse to his mind. You may be sure that our knowledge of the murder of the Italian will be quite sufficient to keep His Excellency in a painful state ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach

... you thus so cruelly connive at the projected Misery of her and of yourself by delaying to communicate that scheme which had doubtless long possessed your imagination? A secret Union will at once secure the ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... author of their ruin. The crisis has come. Had you shown a little mercy, the crisis might have terminated favourably. As it is, we are undone. You do not deserve to know the place of my retreat. Your unsisterly heart will prompt you to intercept rather than to aid or connive at my flight. Fly I must; whither, it is pretty certain, will never come to your ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown

... point in minor morals, in which every one must judge for himself; but I do wish men would not smoke so much. In fact, I should be pleased if they did not smoke at all. I do not believe there is any necessity for it. I believe it is a mere habit of self-indulgence. Women connive at it, because—well, because, in a way, they must. Men are childish, and, as I have said before, animal. I don't think they have nearly the self-restraint, self-denial, high dignity and purity and conscience ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... customs, debauch our nature, and drive it headlong as it were into vice. The governors of the world, and I am afraid the priesthood, are answerable for the badness of it. Instead of discouraging wickedness to the utmost of their power, both are too apt to connive at it. In the great sin of adultery, for instance; hath the government provided any law to punish it? or doth the priest take any care to correct it? on the contrary, is the most notorious practice of it any detriment to a man's fortune or to his reputation in the world? doth it exclude ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... protection and rescue wherever there is danger and need; and again, that we give help and counsel, so as to maintain our neighbor's honor. For whenever you omit this when you could make resistance, or connive at it as if it did not concern you, you are as truly guilty as the one perpetrating the deed. Thus, to state it in the briefest manner, there is required this much, that every one both live chastely himself and help his neighbor do the same, so that God by this ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther

... are a licentious crew, acknowledging no discipline or restraints, but that the grave elders of the university, and those who wield the nominal authority of the place, passively resign the very shows of power, and connive at general excesses, even when they do not absolutely authorize them in their personal examples. Now, when such representations are made, to what standard of a just discipline is it that these writers ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... should he treated as they seemed disposed to treat such of his race as they could get into their power. He even made an attempt to persuade Bradford to leave them to the fate they so well deserved, and to connive at their destruction, which would remove an increasing evil from ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb

... disaffection and schism? The free towns, perhaps, might foster this pernicious art, and certain evilly-disposed potentates wink at the establishment of type-founderies in their states. But the great powers of Europe knew better! They would never connive at this second sowing of the dragon's teeth ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... an ideal citizen!' I was addressing myself, 'A first chop specimen of a low-down idiot,—to connive at the escape of the robber who's been robbing Paul. Since you've let the villain go, the least you can do is to leave a card on the Apostle, and inquire ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh

... for the mere pleasure of handing her his room key. Having no valuables of course but his money which he carried in his pockets there was no danger from unprincipled persons had she been disposed to connive ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs

... he had really gone to visit his family, so that he had a fairly good conscience in giving this color to the fact that he was leaving the place permanently because he could not bear it any longer. It was a shade of deceit to connive with his room-mate for the custody of his carpet-bag and the few socks and collars and the one shirt and summer coat which did not visibly affect its lankness when gathered into it from his share of the bureau-drawers; ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells

... war with another, there is no doubt that the two governments connive at, and often encourage, the most atrocious libels on each other, to madden the people to preserve their independence, and contribute cheerfully to the expenses of the war. France and England formerly complained of Holland—the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... whenever a momentary inclination happens to lay hold of a majority of their constituents, incompatible with the provisions in the existing Constitution, would, on that account, be justifiable in a violation of those provisions; or that the courts would be under a greater obligation to connive at infractions in this shape, than when they had proceeded wholly from the cabals of the representative body. Until the people have, by some solemn and authoritative act, annulled or changed the established form, ...
— The Federalist Papers

... and punished as professed Adversaries and Malignants. Who seeth not now a strange falling away from these first Principles and Professions, among these who either magnifie and cry up, or at least connive at and comply with such as have not taken the Covenant, yea, are known Enemies to it, and cry down such as are ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland

... collect the first produce of dews, and drip, and rills, ere the collective mass be poured into the single greater central basin of the Sultan's treasury, you give yourself no trouble to check the dishonesty of your agent, or to prevent his peculations. You rather for a while connive at, and favour and lend your own authority to his exactions, which will enable you, when afterwards you squeeze him out, to combine greater profit with a more signal show of justice. In permitting a temporary defalcation from your treasury, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... Magazine the article ended, after "Plaudito, et Valeto," with: "Thy friend upon Earth, though thou did'st connive ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... other outlet. Now there was space to view it calmly, I saw how foolish was the thought that Margery would connive at any breaking of the marriage bond. She would bear my name, and hate me for the giving of it; would go on hating me, I thought, to all eternity; but she would never take her freedom back again, save at ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... said another, "and hence his yellow complexion. Or most likely he is from the Havana or from some port on the Spanish main and comes to make investigation about the piracies which our governor is thought to connive at. Those settlers in Peru and Mexico have skins as yellow as the gold which they ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various

... produc'd a Storm, if it had not been prevented by Condescention. Every one has his Humours, and every one their Fancies, and if we would honestly speak the Truth, every one his Faults, more or less, which if in any State, certainly in Matrimony we ought to connive at, ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... requires." This is the first definite suggestion by Bonaparte of that system of bleeding conquered lands for the benefit of the French Exchequer, which enabled him speedily to gain power over the Directors. Thenceforth they began to connive at his diplomatic irregularities, and even to urge on his expeditions into wealthy districts, provided that the spoils went to Paris; while the conqueror, on his part, was able tacitly to assume that tone of authority with which ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... ha! ha! a conceited puppy, ha! ha! ha!—Well, but Mrs. Malaprop, as the girl seems so infatuated by this fellow, suppose you were to wink at her corresponding with him for a little time—let her even plot an elopement with him—then do you connive at her escape—while I, just in the nick, will have the fellow laid by the heels, and fairly contrive to carry her ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan

... all I wished, when at the critical moment the news of the scenes at Malaga arrived at Madrid, and Sir George had little more to say than that Satan seemed to mingle in this game. Nevertheless I left prison, with the understanding that the Government would connive at the circulation of the Scriptures in a quiet manner, not calculated to produce disturbances nor to ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow

... the worst kind of idolatry.[230] In 1530, when it was proposed to leave the matters in dispute to the decision of the future Council, Luther declared that the mass and monastic life could not be tolerated in the meantime, because it was unlawful to connive at error.[231] "It will lie heavy on your conscience," he writes to the Duke of Saxony, "if you tolerate the Catholic worship; for no secular prince can permit his subjects to be divided by the preaching of opposite doctrines. The ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... am frequently sober, but at such times I am fit company for neither man nor beast; I am harsh and unsympathetic; I scheme and I connive. With nightfall, however, there comes a metamorphosis. Ah! Believe ME! When the Clover Club is strained and descends like the gentle dew of heaven, when the Bronx is mixed and the Martini shimmers in the first rays of the electric light, then I ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... exclusively to the widespread sin of heresy, there was every reason why they should be wholly free from the local jealousies and enmities which might tend to the prejudice of the innocent, or the local favoritism which might connive at the escape of the guilty. If, in addition to this freedom from local partialities, the examiners and judges were men specially trained to the detection and conversion of the heretics; if also, they had by irrevocable vows renounced the world; if they could ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard

... divert the Praetorian bands from these dangerous reflections, the firmest and best established princes were obliged to mix blandishments with commands, rewards with punishments, to flatter their pride, indulge their pleasures, connive at their irregularities, and to purchase their precarious faith by a liberal donative; which, since the elevation of Claudius, was enacted as a legal claim, on the accession ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... unapproachable. Apparently the mother also will prove unapproachable if the adult son desires her as a wife. [The male child, on the other hand, frequently has erotic experiences with the mother. The parents connive at these, because they do not understand the significance even of their own caresses. They generally do not know how to fix the limits between moderation and excess.] The wanderer has no luck with blandishments in the case of the ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer

... of these pugnacious heroes. At one time La Tour appears in person at Boston, to beat up recruits, as more than two hundred years after, another power attempted to raise a foreign legion, and, although the pilgrim fathers do not officially sanction the proceeding, yet they connive at it, and quote Scripture to warrant them. Close upon this follows a protest of D'Aulney, and with it the exhibition of a warrant from the French king for the arrest of La Tour. Upon this there is a meeting of the council and a treaty, offensive ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens

... working of the Power. She thought she knew all its ways, its silences, its reassurances, its inexplicable reservations and evasions. She couldn't be prepared for this—that it, the high and holy, the unspeakably pure thing should allow Harding to prevail, should connive (that was what it looked like) at his taking the gift into his own hands and turning it to his own advantage ...
— The Flaw in the Crystal • May Sinclair

... with Thanadars all over the country to connive at the residence within their jurisdiction of gangs of robbers, on the condition that they shall not rob within those limits, and shall give them a share of what they bring back from ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... consider anything, Dick, save the fact that I was evidently expected to connive at a cynical and criminal disregard for the law of the land, the law which, as a member of the bar, I have sworn to uphold and defend. That is enough for me. I don't have to be knocked down and run over before I can realize that it's time to ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... quickly as a shooting star; already is your conscience warped to connive, for lucre's sake, at some one's secret crimes. You had better, for the moral of the matter, have burnt your right hand, as Scaevola did, than that shawl. Beware! your ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... no attempt to conceal the truth for Vavasour, she may have been unaware of any reason for diverting inquiry from himself respecting letters written for his master. Even if Mrs. Tresham had been willing to connive at his falsehood, she could not have done so; as Salisbury, being convinced that she not only wrote but composed her husband's dying statement and induced him to sign to shield Father Garnet, was so incensed against her that he declined ...
— The Identification of the Writer of the Anonymous Letter to Lord Monteagle in 1605 • William Parker

... to confound these agrarian conspiracies with ordinary crime, or to suppose that they imply a propensity to ordinary crime either on the part of those who commit them, or on the part of the people who connive at and favour their commission. In the districts where agrarian conspiracy and outrage were most rife, the number of ordinary crimes was very small. In Munster, in 1833, out of 973 crimes, 627 were Whiteboy, or agrarian, and even of the remainder, many, being crimes of violence, were ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... only connive at his obstreperous Approbation, but very cheerfully repair at their own Cost whatever Damages he makes. They had once a Thought of erecting a kind of Wooden Anvil for his Use that should be made of a very sounding Plank, in order to render his ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... renowned for the highest degree of national sagacity; they felt, that they had themselves acquired, by force, the independence which they enjoyed; and they trusted that the British administration, through apprehensions of renewing an unpopular and disastrous war, would be induced to connive at, if not confirm, the privilege the Americans affected to claim under the very Navigation Act of Great Britain, the most beneficial effect of which they were thus artfully contriving ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison

... Million of Persons at the least, I speak modestly, and still do expose to Sale to this very Year of our Lord 1542, the King's Council in this Island seeing and knowing it, yet what they find to be manifest and apparent they connive at, permit and countenance, and wink at the horrid Impieties and Devastations innumerable which are committed on the Coasts of this Continent, extending Four Hundred Miles in Length, and continues still together with Venecuela and St. ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas

... made to understand that this was impracticable. In the first place there was but one staircase, at the bottom of which was the open door of the room in which the policeman was sitting; and then, the woman of the house was very firm in declaring that she would connive at nothing which might cost her and her husband their licence. "You've got to face it," said the woman. "I suppose they can't make me get out of bed unless I pleases," said Patience firmly. But she knew that even that resource would fail her, and that a policeman, ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... who interfered with his designs. In a moment, without intention, with the very kindest of motives, she had broken her word to her brother, and she was as miserable as a woman could be over the unhappy slip. And Sophy's proposal added to her remorse. It made her virtually connive at Sophy's intercourse with Archie Braelands, and she felt herself to be in a great strait. In order to favour her brother she had spoken hastily, and the swift punishment of her folly was that she must now either confess her fault or tacitly ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr

... whilst a man thus openly bids defiance to this innate law and supreme Lawgiver, all the bystanders, yea, even the governors and rulers of the people, full of the same sense both of the law and Law-maker, should silently connive, without testifying their dislike or laying the least blame on it? Principles of actions indeed there are lodged in men's appetites; but these are so far from being innate moral principles, that if they were left to their full swing they would carry men to the overturning ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke

... on reaching the peninsula, opened communication with his father, and it was agreed that while Tasa should hold Imna, breaking off all relations with Japan, Oto should adopt a similar course with regard to Paikche. This plot was frustrated by Oto's wife, Kusu, a woman too patriotic to connive at treason in any circumstances. She killed her husband, and the Court of Yamato was informed ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... atheist, another man the best Christian, but dissents from two of the Thirty-Nine Articles, I may let escape the atheist, because I know him to be an atheist, because I am, perhaps, so inclined myself, and because I may connive where I think proper; but the conscientious Dissenter, on account of his attachment to that general religion which perhaps I hate, I shall take care to punish, because I may punish when I think proper. Therefore, connivance being an engine of private malice or private favor, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... military parade, but am told & indeed it is generally said without any Contradiction that I have heard, that the Lt Coll headed the Procession. We are at a Loss to account for this Conduct of a part of the Army in the face of the Sun unless there were good Assurances that the General would connive at it. However he says he is very angry at it. You see what Indignities we suffer, ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams

... disunion. It is an encouragement to seditious speeches and purposes. The clause is well enough as it is. We do not wish to encourage men to come among us and excite discontent among our slaves. We will not permit them to do it. Our safety requires that we should not. Our own citizens do not connive at the escape of slaves. None do it who have any business in our States. We are here for peace. When half a dozen States are out, whose return we wish to secure, shall we put such a clause as this into the Constitution? Do it, and a half dozen others will follow. ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... in Gamelin with a frown, "the scarcity we suffer from is due to the unprincipled buyers and speculators who starve the people and connive with our foes over the border to render the Republic odious to the citizens and to destroy liberty. This comes of the Brissotins' plots and the traitorous dealings of your Petions and Rolands. It is well if the federalists in arms do not march on Paris and massacre the patriot ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... for his colleagues in office, some he treacherously put to death, others he exiled, by which means he got everything under his own power, and was now a tyrant without disguise. The method by which he got the allies to connive at his doings was twofold. Partly he worked on them by pecuniary aid, partly by the readiness with which he lent the support of his foreign troops on any campaign to which they ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon

... in her family wholly unknown. She carefully observed the first appearance of resentment and ill-will in her young children towards any person whatever, and did not connive at it, but was careful to show her displeasure, and suppress it to the utmost; yet not ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship

... irregularities, even when harmless in themselves, to pass unchallenged, lest they acquire the force of precedents. Four hundred years ago such minute vigilance might well seem unnecessary. A nation of hardy archers and spearmen might, with small risk to its liberties, connive at some illegal acts on the part of a prince whose general administration was good, and whose throne was not defended by a single ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... that noise was not meant for—ah, cheek. I can connive at immorality, but I cannot stand impudence. However, it does not excuse their insolence to Mr. Mason. I'll forego the lines this once, remember; but ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling

... got at the truth at last?" he said. "How can I tell? The Duke could have told me, but he is dead. Did he really connive at your romantic passion for his wife? If I may venture to offer an opinion, that part of the story is not quite so well thought out as the rest, though it is excessively modern. Anyhow he is dead. You tell me ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley

... don't want her to be married. I want to take her off by myself and growl over her all alone for a while. Then I want Prince Charming to come along and snatch her up quickly, and set her behind his milk white charger and ride away with her. If we've all got to get together and connive at marrying her off there won't be any comfort ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley

... of a representative body. In proportion as its composition fails to secure this amount, the assembly will encroach, by special acts, on the province of the executive; it will expel a good, or elevate and uphold a bad ministry; it will connive at, or overlook in them, abuses of trust, will be deluded by their false pretenses, or will withhold support from those who endeavour to fulfill their trust conscientiously; it will countenance or impose a selfish, a capricious and impulsive, a short-sighted, ignorant, ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill

... matter is, that you maintain holy and true justice; let it not be ruined, either for self-love or for flatteries, or for any pleasing of men. And do not connive at your officials doing injustice for money, and denying right to the poor: but be to the poor a father, a distributer of what God has given you. And seek to have the faults that are found in your kingdom punished and virtue exalted. For all this appertains ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa

... sheltered by one or more of the crew; in which event they kept their places of concealment until the steamer had arrived at her port of destination, when they would profit by the first opportunity to leave the vessel undiscovered. A small bribe would tempt the average blockade-running sailor to connive at this means of escape. The "impecunious" deserter fared more hardly; and would, usually, be forced by hunger and thirst to emerge from his hiding place, while the steamer was on the outward voyage. A cruel device, ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson

... instance of a man so basely deserting a duty, and giving so base a reason for it? His duty was to put an end to corruption in every channel of government. It cannot be done. Why? Because it would expose our affairs to malignity and enmity, and end, perhaps, to our disadvantage. Not only will he connive himself, but he advises the Company to do it. For fear of what? For fear that their service was so abandoned and corrupt, that the display of the evil would tend more to their disreputation than all their attempts to reform it would tend ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... I shall long remain here myself, Mr. Crabb," said Hector. "I came here with the full intention of making the most of the facilities the institute affords for education, but I find the principal incompetent, and disposed to connive at injustice and brutality. The only good I have got here has been ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger

... have no other means of exacting obedience than open war must be very near its ruin, for one of two alternatives would then probably occur: if its authority was small and its character temperate, it would not resort to violence till the last extremity, and it would connive at a number of partial acts of insubordination, in which case the State would gradually fall into anarchy; if it was enterprising and powerful, it would perpetually have recourse to its physical strength, and would speedily degenerate into a military despotism. So that its activity ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... disingenuous measures the banks plundered the Treasury and people and caused their banknotes to be exempt from taxation. The merchants defrauded the Government out of millions of dollars by bribing Custom House officers to connive at undervaluations of imports. [Footnote: In his report for 1862 Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, wrote: "That invoices representing fraudulent valuation of merchandise are daily presented at the Custom Houses ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... to the very walls of Gaza; and wherever his government is acknowledged no violence can be committed with impunity on European travellers. But the Syrian pashas, equally deficient in inclination and vigour, still permit the grossest extortion, and sometimes connive at the most savage atrocities. Besides, there is a class of lawless Arabs who scour the borders of the wilderness, holding at defiance all the restrictions which a civilized people impose or respect. Sir Frederick Henniker, ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... landed in our northern parts, and found them all sat down in their formalities, as the Gauls did the Roman senators, ready to die with honour in their callings. Sometimes to appease their indignation, we venture to give them hopes that in such a case the government will perhaps connive, and hardly be so severe to hang them for defending it against the letter of the law; to which they readily answer, that they will not lie at our mercy, but let us fight our battles ourselves. Sometimes we offer to get an act, by which upon all Popish insurrections at home, or Popish invasion ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift

... time, recalls, in his Autobiography, a visit which he made with Mr. and Mrs. Clemens to Stratford-on-Avon. "Mrs. Clemens was an ardent Shakespearian, and Mark Twain determined to give her a surprise. He told her that we were going on a journey to Epworth, and persuaded me to connive with the joke by writing to Charles Flower not to meet us himself, but send his carriage. On arrival at the station we directed the driver to take us straight to the church. When we entered, and Mrs. Clemens read on Shakespeare's grave, 'Good ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... What are the labours of that Jumping Sect, Which feeble laws connive at rather than respect? Thou dost not bump, Or jump, But walk men into virtue; betwixt crime And slow repentance giving breathing time, And leisure to be good; Instructing with discretion demi-reps ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... suspicion involves a gigantic conspiracy among more than 300 men. And by the Metropolitan Police system every man promoted is transferred to another division, so that the rank and file would have to induce a continually changing series of strangers to connive at their malpractices. It is on the face ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot

... intellectual inferior, and more excusable. Anyway, it is wise to connive at a thing ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... expedient can not become a permanent condition of government. If the educated and influential classes in a community either practice or connive at the systematic violation of laws that seem to them to cross their convenience, what can they expect when the lesson that convenience or a supposed class interest is a sufficient cause for lawlessness has been well learned ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison

... believed that German officers would connive at such a dastardly scheme as trying to blow up a shelter under which the French staff had gathered for consultation; and in the end it was put down as only the plot of one who was ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow

... be very energetic and desirous to assist me in the total extinction of the slave trade. I assured the governor (Jusef Effendi) that I had entirely suppressed it in my territory, and I had also suppressed the river trade in 1870; but if the authorities were determined to connive at this abomination, I had been placed in a disgracefully false position, and had been simply employed on ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... formidable than the black rosary upon which my hand shut tightly, I, Armand De Rance, priest and gentleman, walked forth with Slippy McGee in those hours when deep sleep falls upon the spirit of man, for to aid and encourage and abet and assist and connive at, nothing ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler

... playgoer may well have a difficulty in believing that these had ever any real existence, sharing Lamb's amazement at a boy-Juliet, a boy-Desdemona, a boy-Ophelia. There must have been much skill among the players; much simple good faith, contentment, and willingness to connive at theatrical illusion on the part of the audience. It must have been hard to tolerate a heroine with too obvious a beard, or of very perceptible masculine breadth of shoulders, length of limb, and freedom of gait. Let us note in conclusion that there ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... certain Miss Hacket would connive at nothing underhand. Besides, I have never seen any thing sly or deceitful in poor Dolores. She will not make friends with us, that is all, and that may ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... their time most suitable for dissipation and crime. The extent of their depredations, and the deliberation with which they were performed, indicated an extensive confederacy. The subordinate police, prone to connive with offenders, was ill-regulated and insufficient. Goods were carried off in masses: bags of sugar and chests of tea were abstracted from the stores; cart loads of property were swept off at once. The habits of the populace were daring, profane, and intemperate; ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... took the name of a lawful impost; but every demand of His Majesty might be construed into an exaction. Fearful to indispose the minds of subjects, pecuniary levies were cautiously resorted to; hence the officers were compelled to connive at plunder, and the destitute soldier often had no other means to supply his imperious wants. For the same reasons discipline was relaxed; every man who had largely contributed to the King's cause felt himself independent of his authority. Obliged beyond all probable power of remuneration, ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... infernal cellar, preparing the train of that stupendous Gunpowder Plot by which he hopes, on the day of judgment, to blow up the world parliament of unbelievers with a general petard of damnation. Will the King connive at this nefarious prowler and permit him to ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... cannot conceive what the Deuce she can want at this season in London. I have written to tell her that my Holidays commence on the 6th of August, but however, July the 1st is the proper day.—I beg that if you cannot find some means to keep her in the Country that you at least will connive at this deception which I can palliate, and then I shall be down in the country before she knows where I am. My reasons for this are, that I do not wish to be detained in Town so uncomfortably as I know I shall be if I remain with her; that I do wish to see my Sister; and in ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... often connive at filial disobedience. Their kindness is most unkind. Their parental love issues forth as a mere burst of feeling, unguided by either reason or law. Hence, their sentimental hearts become an asylum for filial delinquency and criminality. This is no proof of love, but the opposite; for "he that ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips

... politics, of Orleanistic leanings, the clever writer, the fine talker, the chivalrous soldier, the religious Breton, could abandon everything that was legal, everything that could save France against the enemy, and Paris against civil discord; that he would connive at the annihilation of the Senate, of the popular Assembly, of every form of Government that could be recognised as legitimate at home or abroad, accept service under men whose doctrines were opposed to all his antecedents, all his professed opinions, and ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the inducements which now exist for setting the law at defiance. Those who undertake to govern the country are above all things bound to see that the laws are obeyed, and they do not deserve the name of a Government if they submit to, much less if they connive at, a permanent state of anarchy in any part of the country. They know that the law in Ireland is a dead letter, that neither to statute nor common law do the lower orders of Irish Catholics (the bulk of the nation) pay the slightest obedience, and that they are countenanced and urged ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... first objected to the whole proceeding. That was sir Toby Mathews, the catholic chaplain. He went to the marquis and represented that, if there was to be any exercise whatever of unlawful power, the obligations of the sacred office with which he was invested would not permit him to be present or connive thereat. The marquis merrily insisted that it was a case of exorcism; that the devil was in the castle, and out he must go; that if Satan assisted in the detection of the guilty and the purging of the innocent, then was he divided against himself, and what could be better for ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... of Nawabgunge and Sidhore are under the charge of Aga Ahmud, the Amil, who has under him two naibs or deputies, Ghoolam Abbas and Mahummud Ameer. All three are obliged to connive at the iniquities of a Landholder, Ghoolam Huzrut, who resides on his small estate of Jhareeapoora, which he is augmenting, in a manner too common in Oude, by seizing on the estates of his weaker neighbours. He wanted to increase the number of ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... courts if you will not connive at knaves, and tolerate fools. Their number makes them considerable. You should as little quarrel as connect ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... Carlisle. (Ah, he would learn if they Connive at Pym's procedure! Could they but Have once apprised the King! But there's no time For falsehood, now.) Strafford, the ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke

... observe, note, heed, recognize, perceive, mark, take cognizance of, pay attention to. Antonyms: ignore, connive, skip, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... to give the information called for, it would be my imperious duty to exercise the power conferred on me by law of removing them from office and of appointing others who would discharge their duties with more fidelity to the public. I can never suffer anyone to hold office under me who would connive at corruption or who should fail to give the alarm when he saw the enemies of liberty endeavoring to sap the foundations of our free institutions and to subject the free people of the United States to the dominion of a great ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson

... Consolidation Act 1876, any officer in the customs service is liable to instant dismissal and a penalty of L500 for taking a bribe, and any person offering or promising a bribe or reward to an officer to neglect his duty or conceal or connive at any act by which the customs may be evaded shall forfeit the sum of L200. Under the Inland Revenue Regulations Act 1890, the bribery of commissioners, collectors, officers or other persons employed in relation to the Inland Revenue involves a fine of L500. The Merchant Shipping ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... fear, and so did you, that the maid who then attended her, and to whom I was told she was attached with such unusual affection, might have availed herself of her position, and either attempted to seduce her from her faith, or connive ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... for Mabel we should in fact be acquiescing, not only in the wrong done to her but in that done to Ralph. We should, in fact, be going over to the enemy. We could not take their money and even tacitly connive in her ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty



Words linked to "Connive" :   plot, accede, acquiesce, scheme, connive at



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