Meaning & use
conspire
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Meanings
verbintransitive
Secretly plan with other people to do something illegal or harmful.
Grammar: No object; often followed by 'with someone' or 'to do something': conspire with a colleague to steal files.
Patterns
- conspire with someone
- conspire against someone
- conspire to do something
Two managers conspired with an outside supplier to cheat the company.
The group was accused of conspiring against the government.
They conspired to hide the evidence from the police.
verbintransitivefigurative
Seem to work together to cause a bad result, as if planned.
Grammar: No object; often used with 'to do something' and a non-human subject: events, weather, or circumstances conspire.
Patterns
- circumstances conspire to do something
- events conspire against someone
Bad weather and a flat tire conspired to make us miss the flight.
It felt as if everything was conspiring against our plan.
Traffic and a late start conspired to ruin the morning.
Word forms
| third person singular | conspires |
|---|---|
| past tense | conspired |
| past participle | conspired |
| -ing form | conspiring |
Common combinations
- conspire with someone
- He was found to have conspired with criminals.
- conspire against someone
- The officers were accused of conspiring against their own chief.
- conspire to do something
- They conspired to take control of the business.
- circumstances conspire
- Poor timing and bad luck conspired to end the project.
- a conspiracy theory
- She no longer believes that conspiracy theory.
Synonyms and how they differ
- plot
- Plot is very close but often suggests a more detailed, organized plan, and it can also be a noun.
- scheme
- Scheme often means planning something clever for your own advantage; it can be less serious than conspire.
- collude
- Collude is formal and usually describes businesses or officials secretly working together to do something dishonest.
Word family
- conspiracy noun
- a secret plan by a group to do something harmful
- conspirator noun
- a person who takes part in a secret harmful plan
- conspiratorial adjective
- suggesting a secret plan or shared secret
Commonly confused: conspire or inspire? conspire or conspicuous?
conspire vs inspire
Inspire means to encourage or give someone good ideas; conspire means to plan something harmful in secret.
conspire vs conspicuous
Conspicuous means easily seen or noticed, which is almost the opposite of acting secretly.
Practice
The heavy snow and the closed roads ______ to keep us at home all weekend.
Choose one answer.
'Conspire to do something' works here with non-human subjects such as weather and roads. 'Conspired with' would need a person or group after 'with', and 'conspiracy' is a noun.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “conspire”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.