confederacy
1
8.9
- noun
- /kənˈfɛdərəsi/
- Archaic
:
conspiración
- The whistleblower revealed a confederacy among high-ranking officials to embezzle funds.
Examples
-
The detectives uncovered a confederacy of criminals working together to smuggle drugs.
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After much investigation, the police exposed a confederacy that plotted to commit fraud.
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Five men in a confederacy based on common gain.
Fiction book (1998) -
Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince.
Blog text (12) -
You had to swear an oath that you had never aided and abetted the Confederacy in Alabama.
-
Either would be in a position to assist the Confederacy in a scheme that involved piracy and the seizing of forts and arsenals.
Fiction book (1992) -
As proof of his confederacy with the James Gang, Bob told the authorities.. that Dick Liddil was sleeping over at the rented farmhouse... while his ruined leg mended.
-
In the course of researching the histories of those groups that have been processed, the discovery of occasional networking and loose confederacies in which some of these groups participate revealed the existence of perhaps another twenty such organizations that have not yet petitioned for federal acknowledgment.
Academic text (1990)
Synonyms
670
5.5
A secret plan by a group to do something illegal or harmful
Compounds
A group of Native American tribes led by the Muskogee people in the southeastern United States before moving to Oklahoma
How Organized
Surface Forms
Morphology
confederacy = confederate (opaque) = confederate + acy
From 'confederate' meaning an accomplice, the noun suggests an association of such people, but the specific sense 'criminal conspiracy' is not fully predictable.
Etymology
Confederacy comes from the Latin parts con- 'with' and foedus 'treaty'. Think of people 'bound together' by a secret promise, which is why a confederacy can mean a hidden group or plan to do something wrong.