Conniver

Hi, native speakers of English!

I've come across the word "conniver" a couple of times and I'm curious to know how it's used. I would say it refers to someone who acts secretly with the aim of doing something illegal or harmful - so in that sense it's probably similar to "plotter" or "conspirator". Also, I think I've always found the word in AmE contexts, so the word might be used mainly in the US, though I really don't know.

The thing is that, when one looks at the etymology of the verb "to connive", it seems that the illegal/harmful action is done in collaboration with someone else. However - and hence my doubt - I would say the word "conniver" doesn't always imply the collaboration of others. Is this so?

Thank you in advance.

Although I saw a couple of definitions in respectable dictionaries that didn't insist that "connive" was a group activity, my belief is that people generally use connive to mean "to plot with others" or "to conspire with others". If you want to use a word for solitary plotting, it's probably safer to use "plot" or "scheme".

owlman5 said:

Although I saw a couple of definitions in respectable dictionaries that didn't insist that "connive" was a group activity, my belief is that people generally use connive to mean "to plot with others" or "to conspire with others". If you want to use a word for solitary plotting, it's probably safer to use "plot" or "scheme".

Thank you so much, owlman5. My question wasn't so much about the verb as about the noun (i.e. "conniver"). I believe (maybe wrongly) that "conniver" is often used to refer to a person acting individually, even though it derives from a verb that, as you have confirmed, usually means "to plot with others".

How do you use "conniver", as a person who plots individually or with others?

You are welcome.

I wouldn't use "conniver" if I wanted to talk about a solitary schemer. Why not? Because it's related to "connive". Other speakers - and I happen to know one or two of them in this forum - use that word differently. I'm sure it won't surprise you that fluent English-speakers don't always agree about everything.

I don't think someone can connive on their own, just as someone can't deceive on their own. They need at least one victim.

"Co-connivers" are definitely possible, even likely, for me, but a conniver could also be a manipulator or, to use a colorful slang phrase, a "shit-stirrer". He might stir up trouble between two other people who had no ill will before he started working his ways.

The word makes me think of Mordred in the King Arthur tales.

JamesM said:

I don't think someone can connive on their own, just as someone can't deceive on their own. They need at least one victim.

"Co-connivers" are definitely possible, even likely, for me, but a conniver could also be a manipulator or, to use a colorful slang phrase, a "shit-stirrer". He might stir up trouble between two other people who had no ill will before he started working his ways.

Thanks, James. I can see that, as owlman5 points out, not all AmE speakers use the word in the same way. The way you use it - in the sense of (individual) "manipulator" - is the one I've come across before (which I find sort of puzzling since the verb it comes from clearly involves more than one perpetrator). When we were discussing the individual or collective nature of the action, I wasn't really thinking of the victim. I mean, I think both I and owlman5 were thinking of "in collaboration with others" as a group of wrongdoers trying to harm someone else.

Hullo LB. For me a conniver generally acts alone, in secret, maliciously and underhandedly. (The verb connive and adjective conniving both convey the same idea.) And the word is highly 'affective', far more so than plotter, schemer and conspirator: it's inherently an insult.

The con- idea is entirely absent for me ...

I don't think I've ever used "conniver". Clearly, it exists, but in my BrE experience it is rare. I use "conniving", and I generally follow it with a word such as "bastard", to refer to someone who schemes alone.

Li'l Bull said:

Hi, native speakers of English!

I've come across the word "conniver" a couple of times and I'm curious to know how it's used. I would say it refers to someone who acts secretly with the aim of doing something illegal or harmful - so in that sense it's probably similar to "plotter" or "conspirator".

Connive, according to OED does not have the direct idea of conspiracy.The main meanings centre around the first meaning "1 a. intr. To shut one's eyes to a thing that one dislikes but cannot help, to pretend ignorance, to take no notice." (OED rev.1891)

Only in meaning 3 b, do we find: "To have a covert understanding with (a person); to take part or co-operate with privily.
1797 E. M. Lomax in Philanthrope No. 28. 222 He will be so vain and conceited as to connive with you.
1831 Scott Castle Dangerous ii, in Tales of my Landlord 4th Ser. III. 247 Dost thou connive with the wolves in robbing thine own folds?"

conniver, n. One who connives.
1639 R. Younge Sinne Stigmatizd 825 (T.) Abettors; counsellors; consenters; commenders; connivers; concealers.
[...]
1890 Q. Rev. Oct. 543 That..comes near to an admission that he had been a conniver.[/quote]It is certainly pejorative (ewie) and rare (sound shift). But I would take "conniver" to be more a person who turns a blind eye to something, rather than a secret conspirator.

I don't think that I have ever used it, and, although a valid word, it seems somewhat 19th century.

I believe it's still in use in the U.S., probably more in the Bible Belt than elsewhere.

Here's a great quote from a study on personalities in the Bible, published in 2007:

Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes: An Exposition of the Scriptures for Disciples and Young Christians

He was constantly manipulating people and events to take advantage of them for his own aggrandizement. He was a conniver and a cheat, and he felt no compunction in being so.

That first line is an excellent definition of a conniver, in my understanding of the word.

JamesM said:

That first line is an excellent definition of a conniver, in my understanding of the word.

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