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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



... 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 have taken me off this diversion, I do really believe, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... 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 ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... firmness, they 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 value. And this, let it be also observed, is a defect which might ...
— 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

... 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, you consider yourselves as only lending ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... so appalled that a woman carrying her baby should connive at the death of another's that she stood quite still and stared at her, until the boys behind her thrust her with sticks. When she passed the alley between the post-office and the carrier's she saw the cattle-man, Goodtart, looking out at her from its shadows; he did not move, ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... 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 he saw you behind the screen in his wife's rooms at midnight, ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley

... couple—not necessarily a guilty couple—realize after the murderer is gone that they have placed themselves in a position in which it may be difficult for them to prove that they did not themselves either do the deed or connive at it. They rapidly and rather clumsily met the situation. The mark was put by Barker's bloodstained slipper upon the windowsill to suggest how the fugitive got away. They obviously were the two who must have heard the sound of the gun; so they gave the alarm exactly ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... no hope of 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 a ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... 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 of ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... which might have 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 ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... produce evidence of the collusion of the Flying U outfit with the Happy Family, in the taking of the claims. Or she must connive to prevent the filing of answers to the contest notices within the time-limit fixed by law, so that the cases would go by default. That, of course, was the simplest—since she had not been able to gather any evidence of collusion that would ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower

... guineas, and this very day and hour appointed for the trial, on which considerable sums of money are depending. As for Mr. Norton, it is not proper that he should be present, or seem to countenance such violent proceedings, which, however, it is necessary to connive at, as convenient vents for the evaporation of those humours, which, being confined, might accumulate and break out with greater fury in conspiracy ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... plebeian name of farmer, offers to enlist. Standing with his back against the 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 ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler

... 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 ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens

... appointed, and he appeared to 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

... the inquisition as directed against Lutherans was thoroughly unpopular and was resisted in various provinces on the technical ground of local privileges. The Protestants managed {245} to keep unnoticed amidst a general intention to connive at them, and though they did not usually flinch from martyrdom they did not court it. The inquisitors were obliged to arrest their victims at the dead of night, raiding their houses and hauling them from bed, in order to avoid popular tumult. [Sidenote: 1543] When ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... homicide, I am virtually abetting the crime. If I refuse to bale out a boat because I am in doubt whether my efforts will keep her afloat, I am really helping to sink her. If in the mountain precipice I doubt my right to risk a leap, I actively connive at my destruction. He who commands himself not to be credulous of God, of duty, of freedom, of immortality, may again and again be indistinguishable from him who dogmatically denies them. Scepticism ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James

... he knows his officers, thus defrauded, fleece and oppress his people: but he thinks proper to wink at these abuses. That government may be said to be weak and tottering which finds itself obliged to connive at such proceedings. The king of France, in order to give strength and stability to his administration, ought to have sense to adopt a sage plan of oeconomy, and vigour of mind sufficient to execute it in all its parts, ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... litter near the temple, where he was met by a number of priests, who carried him up the steps. They had sacrificed four Indians the night before to their accursed idols, as all our endeavours were insufficient to stop that abominable practice, which we were forced to connive at for a season, being afraid to do any thing which might occasion an insurrection. After remaining a short time at his devotions, Montezuma came down from the temple, and returned to our quarters in much good humour, and made presents to all of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... scruples. Gahra, albeit willing to go with me, knew no more of the country than I did, and there was not a man in it who could have been induced even by a bribe either to act as my guide or otherwise connive at my escape; and I had ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall

... enough of his good will, having prevented all enterprises in this regard, and preferred to have his own subjects cut into pieces rather than that they should carry out their designs. Had his Majesty been willing merely to connive at these undertakings, 'tis probable that the affairs of your highness would not have succeeded so well as ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... countryman, or a gentleman of 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 ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse

... Welbeck's conduct was dishonest. He ought doubtless to be pursued to his asylum and be compelled to refund his winnings. You confess yourself to know his place of refuge, but urge a promise of secrecy. Know you not that to assist or connive at the escape of this man was wrong? To have promised to favour his concealment and impunity by silence was only an aggravation of this wrong. That, however, is past. Your youth, and circumstances, hitherto unexplained, may apologize for that misconduct; but it is certainly your duty to ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... 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. ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... you yourself had been married instead of having acted merely as an accomplice. Look at me, another accessory, come two thousand miles on a garlicky, cockroachy banana steamer all the way from South America to connive at the sacrifice—please to observe how lightly my guilt rests upon my shoulders. Only little sister I had, too, and now she's gone. Come now! take something ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry

... walls, and Audrey followed. Nobody gave attention to them except the second loud man, who winked the wink of knowledge. The fact was that both the loud men, being unalterable Tories, had been very willing to connive at Jane Foley's scheme for the affliction ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett

... admission into office, he did not only neglect to report to the Collector and Controller of Yarmouth or to the Board the misconduct of his Mate, in unlawfully taking from the said ship the four cases of Geneva in question, but did take out of them for his own use, and by so doing did connive at and sanction the aforesaid unproper conduct of his Mate." It was also brought against Riches that he had not entered any account of this incident into his ship's journal, or made any record of the ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton

... nice type of 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 ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh

... homelike quality though and it was worth risking the perilous catapulting up and down 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 at dishonesty. ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs

... suffered, to see of how little benefit my Lucubrations have been to my fellow-subjects. Men will go on in their own way in spite of all my labour. I gave Mr. Didapper a private reprimand for wearing red-heeled shoes, and at the same time was so indulgent as to connive at him for fourteen days, because I would give him the wearing of them out; but after all this I am informed, he appeared yesterday with a new pair of the same sort. I have no better success with Mr. Whatdee'call[1] as to his buttons: ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... 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

... 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 road—in that mephitic atmosphere, ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... 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 derived ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger

... impulses to those of general irritation and dislike? Some truth there was in this, it cannot be denied: innumerable cases arise, in which a man the most just is obliged, in some imperfect sense, to connive at injustice; his chance experience must convince him that injustice is continually going on; and yet, in any attempt to intercept it or to check it, he is met and baffled by the insuperable obstacles of household necessities. Dr. S. therefore surrendered himself, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... 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. ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips

... 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. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... than that, not one of these pedants who growled at promiscuous botany has once objected to promiscuous dancing, not even with the gentleman's arm round the lady's waist, which the custom of centuries cannot render decent. Yet the professors of delicacy connive, and the Mother Geese sit smirking at the wall. Oh, world of hypocrites ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... fooling with the prophet Elijah, the Lord's chosen? Have you no fear of the wrath that God shall bestow on you if you even dare to offend His divine servant? Don't you ever for a minute think that you can connive to beat me out of my property in Zion City, you and that interloper, L. L. Voliva. I shall have it all just as the Lord meant I should, and I shall carry on the work just as the Divine Master meant I should. ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck

... 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

... grew apparent of special and permanent tribunals, devoted 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 acquire no wealth, ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard

... or any house or room resorted to for the purpose of prostitution, who shall admit or keep any minor of either sex therein, or any parent or guardian of any such minor who shall admit or keep such minor, or sanction, or connive at the admission or keeping thereof, into, or in any such house or room, shall be guilty ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various

... proclamation there is one paragraph, of which I do not remember any precedent. He threatens, that, if any peasant should be found with arms, he shall be hanged without further inquiry; and that, if any lord shall connive at his vassals keeping arms in their custody, his village shall be ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... of such a thing. Such a 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 of ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot

... may also defend, protect, and rescue wherever there is danger and need; and give help and counsel, so as to maintain our neighbor's honor. For wherever you allow such a thing when you could prevent it, or connive at it as if it did not concern you, you are as truly guilty as the one perpetrating the deed. Thus it is required, in short, that every one both live chastely himself and help his neighbor do the same." (Large Catechism, p. 419.) The reason why God in the Sixth ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau

... Wessagussett, and he was willing that they 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 ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb

... Margaret sighed. "I 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 in ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley

... Sports. I askt, "What, the King's Parliament at Oxford?" He answered, "No; the Country's Parliament at Westminster." I sayd, I was sorrie, for manie poore hard-working Men had no other Holiday. He sayd, another Holiday woulde be given them; and that whether or no, we must not connive at Evil, which we doe in permitting an holy Daye to sink into a Holiday. I sayd, but was it not the Jewish Law, which had made such Restrictions? He sayd, yes, but that Christ came not to destroy the moral Law, of which Sabbath-keeping was a Part, and that even its ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning

... also make resistance, afford 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 commandment wishes to hedge ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther

... follow—"was an 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 would ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... beneficent 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 ...
— The Flaw in the Crystal • May Sinclair

... express the illiterate and blind ignorance and vulgarity than by saying that the best informed of them have probably never heard of Lord Byron. No, no, Lord Byron may be indulgent to these jackal followers of his; he may connive at their use of his name—nay, it is not to be denied that he has given them too, too much countenance—but he never can, I should think, now that he sees not only the road but the rate they are going, continue to take a part so contrary to all his own interests and feelings, and to ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... complaining that Arana had used violence against him and praying relief. Although the admiral well knew that Riquelme was of an unquiet and mutinous disposition, bethought fit to conceal his jealousy on the present occasion, and rather to connive at this matter which might be guarded against, thinking it quite enough to provide against the open ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... parties are named, and the time is designated; for it is lasting as the annual revolutions of the seasons. And what is most extraordinary,—the highest official authorities in Canada know that all those statements are true, and they sanction and connive at the iniquity!—The priests and nuns have been offered, for several months past, the most easy and certain mode to disprove the felonies imputed to them, and they are still as the dungeons of the Inquisition, silent as the death-like quietude of the convent cell; and as retired ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk

... preceding night was remarkable for his attachment to field-sports, which he pursued without much regard to the wishes of the individuals over whose property he followed them. The undefined mixture of respect and fear with which he was generally regarded induced most of the neighbouring land-holders to connive at what they would perhaps in another have punished as a trespass; but Joshua Geddes would not permit the intrusion of any one upon his premises, and as he had before offended several country neighbours, who, because he would neither shoot himself nor permit others to do so, compared ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... 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 may go better, when one understands them: and it would ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz

... 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 government is thought to connive at. Those settlers in Peru and Mexico have skins as yellow as the gold which they ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... 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 ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa

... 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, it is binding upon themselves collectively, as well as individually; ...
— The Federalist Papers

... that men, if all these things were stamped on their minds, could deliberately offend against them; still more, that rulers should silently connive ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain

... they are severe and 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 lion. He begins indeed to fondle ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer

... places taken up of Men that might make Husbands for our Daughters. And the Sons and Daughters of New England would become more like Jacob and Rachel, if this Slavery were thrust quite out of Doors. Moreover it is too well known what Temptations Masters are under, to connive at the Fornication of their Slaves; lest they should be obliged to find them Wives, or pay their Fines. It seems to be practically pleaded that they might be lawless; 'tis thought much of, that the Law should have satisfaction for their Thefts, and other Immoralities; by ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... and heap coals of fire on slanderous Hannah's head, by assuring her you feel convinced she did not premeditatedly destroy traces, and connive at the escape of the burglars, by burning that most important glove, which might have aided us ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... all in their hands. To 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 of every new ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... But it would be unjust 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, ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... 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 ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... 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 ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... 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 be ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... its hands of responsibility for its toleration, the better for its credit in history. The Constitution, to be sure, denies to Congress the power to pass laws prohibiting the free exercise of religion; but it is the most monstrous nonsense to argue that the Federal Government is bound thereby to connive at polygamy, perjury, incest, and murder. There are principles of social order which constitute the political basis of every state in Christendom, that are violated by the practices of the Mormon Church, and which this Republic is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various

... which they were only too happy to promise, and to the King for liberty of religion in the wilderness confirmed under his broad seal, which his Majesty of course refused. It was hinted however that James would connive at them and not molest them if they carried themselves peaceably. So they resolved to go without the seal, for, said their magistrate very wisely, "if there should be a purpose or desire to wrong them, a seal would not serve their turn though ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... 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, employed by one of the captains, effectually put a stop, ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson

... stair-heid if it hadna been her repute for the Evil E'e? Ye may lauch, but I could tell tales o' Annapla's capacity. The night afore ye cam' she yoked himsel' on his jyling the lassie, though she's the last that wad thraw him. 'Oh.' said he, 'ye're a' tarred wi' the ae stick: if ye connive at his comin' here without my kennin', I'll gie him death wi' his boots on!' It was in the Gaelic this, ye maun ken; Annapla gied me't efter. 'Boots here, boots there,' quo' she, 'love's the fine adventurer, and I see by the griosach' ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... nothing more enlivening than: "Oh, madame!" and "Ah, madame!" and "Quelle ivresse!" or "Quelle horreur!" or, in recitative, detailing whatever dreary platitudes and inanities the librettist and Heaven connive to put upon the ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King

... come to discuss that question," said my father, "we must all confess we have had in our day to pocket a good many more praises than we had a right to. I agree with you, however, my child, that we must not connive at any thing of the sort. So I will propose this clause in the bargain between you and Mr. S.; namely, that, if he finds any fault with your work, he shall send it back to yourself to be set right, ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald

... of Savoy, of France, nay, not for the whole empire, would I connive at deceit. I deal with others frankly, in good faith, and very simply; the words of my lips are the outcome of the thoughts of my heart. I cannot carry two faces under one hood; I hate duplicity with ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus

... policy of a well-ordered government must sometimes have interposed in behalf of the oppressed Christians; [152a] nor was it possible for the Roman princes entirely to remove the apprehension of punishment, or to connive at every act of fraud and violence, without exposing their own authority and the rest of their subjects to the most ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... every man to hurt him Can hardly be said to see what they see Cardinal Mazarin Cardinal Richelieu Complaisance due to the custom of the place Conjectures supply the defect of unattainable knowledge Connive at knaves, and tolerate fools Deep learning is generally tainted with pedantry Deepest learning, without good-breeding, is unwelcome Desirous of pleasing Dictate to them while you seem to be directed by them Dissimulation is only to hide our own cards Do not become a virtuoso of small wares ...
— Widger's Quotations from Chesterfield's Letters to his Son • David Widger

... 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 ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... 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. Martha ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas

... of an idea of mine of offering France a neutrality? that is, to allow her to assist both us and the Americans. I know she would assist only them: but were it not better to connive at her assisting them, without attacking us, than her doing both? A treaty with her would perhaps be followed by one with America. We are sacrificing all the essentials we can recover, for a few words; and risking the independence of this country, for the nominal supremacy over America. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole

... injuries received, and to drive out a tyrant. For believe me, noble Montgomery, that monarch has little pretensions to virtue, who suffers the oppressors of his people, or of his conquests, to go unpunished. To connive at cruelty, is to practice it. And has Edward ever frowned on one of those despots, who, in his name, have for these two years past laid Scotland in ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... damnable murderer more magnificently than any hero who ever fought for England. I managed to save Michael from the worst, but we had to send that perfectly innocent man to penal servitude for a crime we know he never committed, and it was only afterward that we could connive in a sneakish way at his escape. And Sir Walter Carey is Prime Minister of this country, which he would probably never have been if the truth had been told of such a horrible scandal in his department. It might have done for us altogether in ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton

... trainer, and has a certain reputation to keep up. It would have done him no good to have had a runner drugged while under his care; certainly it would have cooked his goose with you. It was much the safer thing to connive at kidnapping. That put all the active work into other hands, and left him safe, even if the trick failed. Now, you remember that we traced the prints of Crockett's spiked shoes to within a couple of yards from the fence, and that there ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison

... pretended neutrality, the ministry have had opportunity to watch the course of events, to connive at aid to the Rebellion, and to leave themselves unembarrassed when the success of one side or the other should make it expedient to declare in its favor. It has been with the greatest difficulty that Mr. Adams has been able to bring the Foreign Office to exert its authority against violations ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... 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, he said, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... George and Esther, but I grudge Catherine to that man Wharton. He may be a good artist, but I think his merits as a husband beneath criticism. I believe every woman would connive at a love affair though the man had half a dozen living wives, and had been hung two ...
— Esther • Henry Adams

... west of the Indus are obliged to pay a sort of black mail to these Khans to be allowed 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 from them on ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth

... with this explosion of petulance and brow-beating, I endeavored to demonstrate to him the unfairness of his remarks, and the disadvantage to himself if he should appear to connive at the ruffianly behavior of his people. But I assured him that in future I should not trouble him with my complaints, but take them directly to the British Consul. And so saying I left this unreasonable prime minister, meeting the cause of all our woes (the half-brother) ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... they sell spirits.' Mr. Job Trotter briefly explained here, that all persons, being prohibited under heavy penalties from conveying spirits into debtors' prisons, and such commodities being highly prized by the ladies and gentlemen confined therein, it had occurred to some speculative turnkey to connive, for certain lucrative considerations, at two or three prisoners retailing the favourite article of gin, for their own profit ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... 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

... dilemmas in which a too sensitive humanitarian ever finds himself is whether he should destroy a spider's web, and so, perhaps, starve the spider to death, or whether he should leave the web, and so connive at the death of a multitude of flies. I have long been content to leave Nature to her own ways in such matters. I cannot say that I like her in all her processes, but I am content to believe that this may be owing to my ignorance of some ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd

... 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

... the moral duty I owe to the com- mandment of God, and the natural respect that I tender unto the conservation of my essence and being, I would not perish upon a ceremony, politick points, or indiffer- ency: nor is my belief of that untractable temper as, not to bow at their obstacles, or connive at matters wherein there are not manifest impieties. The leaven, therefore, and ferment of all, not only civil, but re- ligious, actions, is wisdom; without which, to commit ourselves to the flames is homicide, and (I fear) but to pass ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne

... connive at any depravity among themselves, but must duly rebuke it. Those who have acquired the respect of the believers, and would be exemplary Christians, must take heed lest they accustom themselves to flattery and luxury; they must even submit to sharp ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland

... have no hope of relief in them, but only the tragic rage against tyranny which will sometimes blaze up in victims—and on the other hand there are officials who will resign their positions rather than connive at abuses. But every means is taken to avert this last; for guards know things, and the System could be shaken by men who not only know, but, unlike prisoners, have a chance to make ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne

... deliverance—nor did they labour in vain. These were Chowles and Judith, my foster-sister, and whom, you may remember, I suspected—and most unfairly—of intending my betrayal. By means of a heavy bribe, they prevailed on one of the officers to connive at my escape. An iron bar was removed from the window of my prison, and I got through the aperture. Judith concealed me for some days in the vaults of Saint Faith's, after which I fled into the country, where ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... its frequency, has been a temptation to Dishonesty. Who will fear to be a culprit when a legal sentence is the argument of pity, and the prelude of pardon? What can the community expect but growing dishonesty, when juries connive at acquittals, and judges condemn only to petition a pardon; when honest men and officers fly before a mob; when jails are besieged and threatened, if felons are not relinquished; when the Executive, consulting the spirit of the community, receives the ...
— Twelve Causes of Dishonesty • Henry Ward Beecher

... 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 ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke

... gave into the grounds of Mr. Bainrothe from our own, made years before by my father's permission for the convenience of his friend; the night was a dark and stormy one, yet she went forth alone, or seemed to, in my vision, to seek a man she detested, and with him connive the destruction of the fortunes of the child of her ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... have us suppose, not only that the great body of the students 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 would be understood as appealing? Is it to some ideal, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... revolutionists is the employment of the agent-provocateur on the part of the Russian government. The visit of Vladimir Bourtzeff to Chicago just after his exposure of the famous secret agent, Azeff, filled one with perplexity in regard to a government which would connive at the violent death of a faithful official and that of a member of the royal household for the sake of bringing opprobrium and punishment to the revolutionists and credit to ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... 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 ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... against the Sioux, had murdered Finley and his men at Lake Pepin. This party was raised on the sources of the Ontonagon and Chippewa. I told him how impossible it was that his Great Father should ever see their faces in peace while they countenance or connive at such dastardly war parties, who went in quest of a foe, and not finding him, fell upon a friend. He said he had not forgotten this. Even now, I continued, a chief of the Sauks was trying to enlist the Indians in a scheme of extreme hostilities. It was a delusion. They ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... 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

... vagabond,' thundered Mr Prothero. 'She to connive and contrive! fit mother for such a son. They 'ont come to no good end. No, mother, I can't, nor I 'ont go after 'em; Netta has made her own bed, and she must lie ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... for him. Better, said they, win England by force and marry Mary. To England the marriage, or a similar one, seemed really necessary. The Catholics at home and abroad were busily plotting against Elizabeth. Philip and Alba were ready to connive at her murder; the Protestants in Holland and France were powerless, and this match with Anjou seemed the only way to meet the danger. Anjou, under Catholic influence, was scornful, whilst Catherine, anxious ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... we so little respect him as to be unmindful of his blessings; to be unwilling for the sake of them sincerely to forgive our neighbor a single slighting word, not to mention rendering him service. We conduct ourselves as if God might be expected to connive at our ingratitude and permit us to continue in it, at the same time conferring upon us as godly and obedient children, success and happiness. More than this, we think we have the privilege and power to live and do as we please. Indeed, the more ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther

... education, bad habits, and bad 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 ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... be it," 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 ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... away his wife and infant son to France, the king himself left his palace at Whitehall by night and fled down the river to Sheerness. Here he was recognised and brought back to London. It was thought, however, best to connive at his escape, and he landed on the coast of France at Christmas. The expedition had achieved its object and William, greeted as a deliverer, entered the capital at the head of ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... Coolidge, and she was being held a prisoner in the hands of villains on board the Seminole, why had she acted toward West as she did in that house on Wray Street? To all appearances there she had been hand in glove with the conspirators, willing even to connive at the Captain's murder if necessary to the success of their crime. Only one theory was possible; that the girl was under constraint, driven to her strange act by personal fear. She dare do nothing else, ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish

... 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 ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... commanding the Syrians to obey and hold communion with him. SS. Theodosius and Sabas maintained boldly the right of Elias, and of John his successor; whereupon the imperial officers thought it most advisable to connive at their proceedings, considering the great authority they had acquired by {126} their sanctity. Soon after, the emperor sent Theodosius a considerable sum of money, for charitable uses in appearance, but in reality to engage him in his interest. ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... 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 by angry, ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship



Words linked to "Connive" :   accede, acquiesce, assent, scheme



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