conspire
Americanverb (used without object)
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to agree together, especially secretly, to do something wrong, evil, or illegal.
They conspired to kill the king.
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to act or work together toward the same result or goal.
The wind and rain conspired to strip the trees of their fall color.
verb (used with object)
verb
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to plan or agree on (a crime or harmful act) together in secret
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(intr) to act together towards some end as if by design
the elements conspired to spoil our picnic
Usage
What does conspire mean? Conspire commonly means to secretly plan with multiple other people to do something wrong, evil, or illegal. Such a plan is called a conspiracy. Conspiracy can also refer to the act of making such plans—the act of conspiring—or to the group making the plans. The people involved can be called conspirators. In a legal context, conspiracy refers to an agreement by two or more people conspiring to commit a crime. Conspire can also mean to act together to achieve some result. This use often likens inanimate objects to people engaging in a conspiracy, as in I was on time until the traffic and the weather conspired to make me late. Example: In the movie, supervillains conspire to steal all of the world’s bananas.
Synonym Usage
See plot.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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conspirernoun
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preconspireverb
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nonconspiringadjective
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unconspiredadjective
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unconspiringadjective
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conspiringlyadverb
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unconspiringlyadverb
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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conspiresimple
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conspiressimple
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have conspiredperfect
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has conspiredperfect
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am conspiringprogressive
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are conspiringprogressive
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is conspiringprogressive
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have been conspiringperfect progressive
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has been conspiringperfect progressive
Past
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conspiredsimple
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had conspiredperfect
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was conspiringprogressive
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were conspiringprogressive
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had been conspiringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of conspire
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English, from Middle French conspirer, from Latin conspīrāre “to act in harmony, conspire,” equivalent to con- + spīrāre “to breathe”; see origin at con-, spirant, spirit
Explanation
When you conspire, you collaborate with others to do harm, or maybe just keep something from happening, like a group that conspires to get tuna melts booted from the lunch menu by urging everyone to order other things. You can conspire with someone, meaning you team up with another person to plot against someone else, or you can conspire against someone. This means you devise a scheme to do that person harm. Conspire also can be used in a more figurative sense to describe events that cause problems, like bad weather that may conspire against your picnic plans, or a series of injuries that conspire against a basketball team struggling to make the playoffs.
Vocabulary lists containing conspire
Power Prefix: con-
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1984
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Grade 9, List 5
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
In popular usage, it assumes the thing signified must be false, whereas people do conspire, and it is reasonable to devise theories about their schemes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 23, 2025
Circumstances can conspire against us, but there should be room for improvement.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 28, 2025
"Here, it helped guide us to think about how the cell density, proliferation rate, signaling, and all these different things conspire."
From Science Daily ● Nov. 19, 2024
Circumstances — “the confluence of Labor Day and the kids being back in school” — could conspire to push transmission rates higher, Hudson said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 3, 2024
"I know some of these names. These are rich men. Traders, merchants, craftsmen. Why should they conspire against us?"
From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
Kovalchuk publicly praised the 1968 Soviet movie “Dead Season,” in which the CIA conspires with former Nazi doctors to control humanity.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 29, 2026
And year after year, the calendar conspires to help them.
From Slate ● Oct. 31, 2025
"When you commit to a journey, the universe conspires to help you," Smith told a beaming Mr Barry, citing author Paulo Coelho.
From BBC ● Jan. 4, 2024
Hecuba, his widow, conspires with Briseis to take advantage of the restless, fractious Greeks.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 28, 2021
“When you want something, all the universe conspires to help you achieve it,” the old king had said.
From "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho
All that has conspired to produce a World Cup that is struggling to catch on with the public.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 12, 2026
The Iran war, soaring jet-fuel prices, and the soccer World Cup have all conspired to make domestic travel in the U.S. incredibly pricey.
From Barron's ● Jun. 11, 2026
The four firms allegedly conspired to roughly double container prices between 2019 and 2021.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 21, 2026
Prosecutors said Lu conspired with China’s Ministry of Public Security to open a police station in New York.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 13, 2026
Around 435 BC, he conspired to overthrow the tyrant of Elea, Nearchus.
From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife
The pair admitted to charges of conspiring to commit unauthorised acts against TfL under the Computer Misuse Act.
From BBC ● Jun. 22, 2026
A Ukrainian man accused of conspiring to set fire to a car linked to Sir Keir Starmer has told a court that he refused to film the attack despite an alleged accomplice "begging" him to.
From BBC ● May 27, 2026
Sanberg pleaded guilty in October to the federal charges of conspiring to bilk investors out of $248 million for portraying the now-defunct Aspiration as a “socially-conscious and sustainable banking services and investment products” firm.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 23, 2026
In May 2025, the firm pleaded guilty “to conspiring to hide more than $4 billion from the IRS in at least 475 offshore accounts” and agreed to pay nearly $511 million, according to the DOJ.
From Barron's ● Apr. 9, 2026
Tolstoy, of course, as an omniscient narrator, also provides a running commentary, establishing what it was that the combatants were all, willy-nilly, conspiring to bring about.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
