Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act.
- noun A group of conspirators.
- noun Law An agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action.
- noun A joining or acting together, as if by sinister design.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun An ancient writ which was issued against parties alleged to be guilty of a conspiracy to indict a party for treason or a felony.
- noun A combination of persons for an evil purpose; an agreement between two or more persons to commit in concert something reprehensible, injurious, or illegal; particularly, a combination to commit treason, or excite sedition or insurrection; a plot; concerted treason.
- noun Hence Any concurrence in action; combination in bringing about a given result.
- noun Synonyms Intrigue, cabal, machination.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A combination of people for an evil purpose; an agreement, between two or more persons, to commit a crime in concert, as treason; a plot.
- noun A concurence or general tendency, as of circumstances, to one event, as if by agreement.
- noun (Law) An agreement, manifesting itself in words or deeds, by which two or more persons confederate to do an unlawful act, or to use unlawful to do an act which is lawful; confederacy.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The act of two or more persons, called
conspirators , workingsecretly to obtain some goal, usually understood with negativeconnotations . - noun law An
agreement between two or morepersons to break the law at some time in the future. - noun A group of
ravens .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a group of conspirators banded together to achieve some harmful or illegal purpose
- noun a plot to carry out some harmful or illegal act (especially a political plot)
- noun a secret agreement between two or more people to perform an unlawful act
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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It's a conspiracy theory about conspiracy theories, about the powerful mythology of the greatest crime of the American century.
Books on Political Conspiracy Joseph Finder 2009
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Your Palin conspiracy is in left field according to LL.
Paulson stadium deal funnels Portland tax money to New York (Jack Bog's Blog) 2009
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Barrie Zwicker, Canadian media commentator and journalist: "At a certain point, the term conspiracy-theory becomes just an excuse not to do your homework."
two words, part two 2006
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Conspiracy Theories: The Philosophical Debate, the term conspiracy theory started to carry negative connotations after the philosopher Karl Popper wrote, during the Third Reich, that conspiracy theories propelled the paranoid ideologies that gave rise to totalitarian regimes such as that of Adolf Hitler.
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Conspiracy Theories: The Philosophical Debate, the term conspiracy theory started to carry negative connotations after the philosopher Karl Popper wrote, during the Third Reich, that conspiracy theories propelled the paranoid ideologies that gave rise to totalitarian regimes such as that of Adolf Hitler.
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Conspiracy Theories: The Philosophical Debate, the term conspiracy theory started to carry negative connotations after the philosopher Karl Popper wrote, during the Third Reich, that conspiracy theories propelled the paranoid ideologies that gave rise to totalitarian regimes such as that of Adolf Hitler.
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The term conspiracy is not limited to an unlawful scheme or plot.
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The word "conspiracy," a character notes, derives from the Latin for "breathe together."
Rootless Urban Transplants Sam Sacks 2011
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Objectors gave spirited critiques of what they described as a conspiracy against culture itself.
In the Plex Steven Levy 2011
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Objectors gave spirited critiques of what they described as a conspiracy against culture itself.
In the Plex Steven Levy 2011
skipvia commented on the word conspiracy
A flock of ravens
November 16, 2007
oroboros commented on the word conspiracy
CONSPIRACY: Theories of mortal conspiracies reflect ordinary consciousness' secular attempt to tie everything together; it is the ventriloquist dummy's cellular recognition of unidentified forces behind the words coming out of his mouth. --
January 25, 2008
bilby commented on the word conspiracy
"Organizing a community around a basic issue of survival, such as food, makes a lot of nitty gritty sense. After your conspiracy gets off the ground and looks permanent, you should seek to expand it to include more members and an emergency food fund should be set up in case something happens in the community. There should also be a fund whereby the conspiracy can sponsor free community dinners tied into celebrations. Get it together and join the fight for a world-wide food conspiracy."
- Abbie Hoffman, 'Steal This Book', 1971.
February 19, 2009