conspire
to plan secretly with others to do something harmful or illegal; or for events to combine toward one result
Word origin: From Latin conspirare, literally to breathe together.
Conspire in a sentence
Here are example sentences showing conspire in a sentence.
Circumstances seemed to conspire against them at every turn during the ill-fated expedition.
Historians debate whether the ministers actually conspired against the king or merely failed to defend him.
Using “conspire” well
Conspire usually denotes secret planning for harm, aligning it with plot and scheme, but it has a milder sense in which circumstances conspire toward an outcome. The second sense lacks any criminal implication.
More GRE words starting with C
a small secret group plotting against a government or authority
having a hidden or mysterious meaning understood only by initiates
a harsh, jarring mixture of sounds
to obtain something by begging or sponging off others
falling off or shed at an early stage, especially of plant parts
to coax someone into doing something through flattery or persuasion
an event causing great damage, loss, or distress
misty, dim, or dark, and therefore obscure
Questions about “conspire”
See these words the way the GRE tests them.
Definitions in isolation do not stick. Sit a free, full-length GRE mock and meet this vocabulary inside real text completion and sentence equivalence questions, with your score and a worked solution for every answer.