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Connive at   /kənˈaɪv æt/   Listen
Connive at

verb
1.
Give one's silent approval to.  Synonym: wink at.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Connive at" Quotes from Famous Books



... image is permissible) the underdog. One of the most agonising of the minor 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 of the facts of the case. There are, ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd

... purgunnas 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 his followers, ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... impious heretic, into that see, 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 ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... 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

... sack or claret. 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 us an announcement of the kind, dated ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne

... 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 ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... 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 ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow

... 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 dig ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... always been 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 ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison

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

... 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 ...
— 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

... desperate revolts at times—desperate in the literal sense, since they 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 what ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne

... 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 inquire how ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh

... a mad hope, but yet it was a hope; and I argued: Is it better to clutch at the veriest shadow of a chance, or to sit down and end my life amongst scoundrels and assassins? Unless the man "Four-Eyes" deliberately deceived me, Black would connive at the murder of fifty British seamen before another twenty-four hours had sped. These men would have all the anger of desperation to drive them to the attack; and I felt sure that if I could get some arms into their hands, and help ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton

... Government by disgusting the Radicals to such a degree as to make them in spite withdraw their aid on some important occasion. Those gentry are still very irate and sulky, but I do not expect they will connive at the overthrow of the Government; they know better than to open the doors of office to the Tories. Lord Brougham has taken the field with a violent Radical speech, and he seized an occasion to set his tongue wagging against the Chancellor; in short he seems bent on mischief. He has written ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... to connive at the faults of our friends, and all offences are not to be ranked in ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... taken into custody, who had actually been assaulting several of his voters in the presence of the Sheriff. Although Mr. Sheriff had been an eyewitness of these proceedings several times before, yet he felt that, now his attention was thus publicly called to the subject, he could not connive at them any longer; and as Watson had been laying about him in the most outrageous manner, in which he had the audacity to persevere, although called upon by the Sheriff to desist, Mr. Sheriff ordered his constables to take Watson into custody. Two or three of these guardians ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt

... to say. To-night I tell the vicar all that I have just told you. And from this moment, please, we are strangers. I shall come into the room no more than necessity dictates. On Friday we resume our real parts. My husband—Arthur—to—to connive at... Phh!' ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare

... would fly from the hateful remembrance, she resumed:— 'I made escape afterward from the abominable house in his absence, and came to your's: and this gentleman has almost prevailed on me to think, that the ungrateful man did not connive at the vile arrest: which was made, no doubt, in order to get me once more to those wicked lodgings: for nothing do I owe them, except I were to pay them'—[she sighed, and again wiped her charming eyes—adding in a softer, lower ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson

... occasions it is an immemorial custom for the yearlings to interfere with and haze the plebe sentinels. Not a sentinel was disturbed, not a thing went amiss, and why? Manifestly because it was thought —and rightly too—that I would not connive at such interference, and because they feared to attempt it lest they be watched and reported. Later, however, even this semblance of fear disappeared, and they acted under me precisely as they do under ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper

... you, my little girl,' he said kindly, 'never to connive at faults in your brothers or sisters; it is to them a cruel kindness, which both they and you may live to be ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring

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

... prejudice or opinion, and only those of genuine power and self-reliance dare to withstand it. Williamson was physically a fairly brave officer and not naturally cruel; but he was weak and ambitious, ready to yield to any popular demand, and, if it would advance his own interests, to connive at any act of barbarity. [Footnote: This is the most favorable estimate of his character, based on what Doddridge says (p. 260). He was a very despicable person, but not the natural brute the missionaries painted him.] Gibson, however, who was a very ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt

... never could fly one moment from himself, but must be obliged every night to sit down and hold up a glass to his own soul—who could never be blind to his deformity, and who must have brought his conscience not only to connive at but to approve of it—this it is that distinguishes it from the worst cruelties, the worst enormities of those, who, born to tyranny, and finding no superior, no adviser, have gone to the last presumption that there ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... to lie with the Women, in the very Doors of the Tabernacle, when they came to bring their Offerings to the Priest; and he tempted poor Eli to connive at them, or not sufficiently ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... 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 he saw you ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley

... must not 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 admonitions ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland

... reproach Catholics with conduct similar, or as gross, as these instances of immorality which we justly charge on the Protestant sects. Catholics, as individuals, may be, and have been, guilty of grave crimes and scandalous immoralities; but does the church countenance or connive at their conduct? No; we say, emphatically, No. On the contrary, she condemns vice in every shape, and denounces, like another Baptist in the wilderness, the wrath of Heaven on the workers of iniquity. Is there one of her precepts, counsels, or rules, that guards not against ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley

... generosity on the part of the poor prodigal. 'I will not deny that this is the very thing she suggested; she even begged me to propose this to you, but I refused. Do you suppose that either I or my cousin, Dr. Ross, would connive at such deceit and falsehood? It is quite true that Mrs. Blake and her children may refuse to have anything to do with you, but that is solely their affair. In a few hours, Mr. O'Brien, your eldest son will be made aware of ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... treasurer makes use of their money for his own benefit. The king knows it; 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, with the ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... fails to reform, and, later, a criminal career. I have seen children travel this road so often that it is difficult to speak without bitterness of the unthinking alms that led them into temptation. Sometimes parents connive at child-begging, but often they know nothing of it until the children have grown incorrigible. A strict enforcement of the laws against child-begging is very difficult until every one is convinced of ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond

... 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

... ignored, who would come to God? Official chastisement is a work of divine, Christian love. It is a parental duty imposed of God. God has implanted in the parent nature intense love for the child; at the same time, if parents are godly and have proper affection for their children they will not connive at, or let pass unpunished, the disobedience of the latter. They must chastise, both with reproof and with keen rods. These are official strokes—love stripes—enjoined of God, and their infliction is our ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... 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 ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

... 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

... Sunday 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 ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning

... did they perpetrate, connive at, or tolerate such atrocities as were brought to light during the Andover inquiry, such cold blooded heartlessness would at once be laid to the account of their principles. Oh yes, Christians are forward to judge of every tree by its fruit, ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell

... 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



Words linked to "Connive at" :   encourage, advance, boost, further, promote



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