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• confederate
  confederate

  adjective

  united in a league, alliance, or conspiracy.
• Confederate
  Confederate

  adjective

  of, supporting, or relating to the Confederate States of America

confederate

American  

[kuhn-fed-er-it, -fed-rit, kuhn-fed-uh-reyt] / kənˈfɛd ər ɪt, -ˈfɛd rɪt, kənˈfɛd əˌreɪt /

adjective

1. united in a league, alliance, or conspiracy.

2. (initial capital letter) of or relating to the Confederate States of America.

   the Confederate army.

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noun

• confederates
  plural

1. a person, group, nation, etc., united with others in a confederacy; an ally.

   Synonyms:

   cohort, partner, associate

2. an accomplice, especially in a mischievous or criminal act.

3. (initial capital letter) a supporter of the Confederate States of America.

verb (used with or without object)

confederated, confederating

1. to unite in a league, alliance, or conspiracy.

confederate ¹ British  

noun

1. a nation, state, or individual that is part of a confederacy

2. someone who is part of a conspiracy; accomplice

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adjective

1. united in a confederacy; allied

verb

1. to form into or become part of a confederacy

Confederate ² British  

/ kənˈfɛdərɪt, -ˈfɛdrɪt /

adjective

1. of, supporting, or relating to the Confederate States of America

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noun

1. a supporter of the Confederate States of America

Confederate Cultural  

1. A descriptive term for the institutions and people of the Confederacy.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• half-Confederate
  adjective
• nonconfederate
  adjective
• pro-Confederate
  adjective
• unconfederated
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• confederates
  plural

Etymology

Origin of confederate

1350–1400; Middle English confederat < Late Latin confoederātus (past participle of confoederāre to unite in a league), equivalent to con- con- + foeder- (stem of foedus ) treaty ( see fidelity) + -ātus -ate ¹

Explanation

A confederate is an ally — someone who's on your side. Your brother, the artist, might be your only confederate in your goal of studying modern dance in Paris this summer. A confederate is anyone who supports you and works toward the same goal with you. When it is used in the context of government or politics, it means "united by a treaty," like two countries that have joined forces against a third. When the first letter is capitalized, Confederate refers to the southern United States during the Civil War, which were confederates in their fight to secede from the rest of the country.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

confederate Confederate confederates confederated confederating

Grace Soens, who plays June, Marisol’s confederate at work, and Jack Sharpe, who takes on the role of Lenny, June’s mentally disturbed brother, expand this unstable world, where it’s hard to know who to trust.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 17, 2026

“Over two years ago, Richmond was home to more confederate statues than any city in the United States,” Mayor Stoney said in a statement on Twitter after the statue was gone.

From New York Times ● Dec. 12, 2022

Warnock became Georgia’s first Black senator and the first Black Democratic senator from a former confederate state.

From Washington Post ● Oct. 24, 2022

The first march I ever attended was a protest in January 2000, to bring down the confederate flag from the top of the South Carolina State House.

From Salon ● Jul. 4, 2022

Housemaid, nurse, mother, confederate, counselor, chef—what ten thousand things was Madame Manec to Etienne?

From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr

On a drizzly morning in June, all was still on Tuskegee's South Main Street, a two-lane road that runs into the heart of the town square, where a towering Confederate monument loomed over the emptiness.

From BBC ● Jul. 18, 2026

Officials in New Orleans, which had removed several Confederate statues, resisted.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 4, 2026

Gallrein is close to Louisville in a county that features multiple distilleries and a history of Confederate guerrilla violence during the Civil War.

From Slate ● May 19, 2026

At the rally in Montgomery, chants of “we won’t go back” echoed through crowds gathered near the Alabama Capitol, where both Confederate and civil rights monuments stand within view of one another.

From Salon ● May 17, 2026

I wanted to ask if being born in the South or living in Alabama made me a Confederate American, but I thought better of it.

From "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson

A perennial target of assassins, James survived the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, when Guy Fawkes and confederates hoped to blow up Parliament.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 5, 2025

It also illustrates the continuing legal risk to the former president and, even more so, to Trump confederates such as Rudolph W. Giuliani.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 9, 2024

Indeed, Magliocca testified it was understood the goal of the provision was to keep a wide range of former confederates out of public office in the years after the war.

From Seattle Times ● Nov. 3, 2023

The newly released affidavit said that federal agents had “not yet identified all potential criminal confederates nor located all evidence related to its investigation.”

From New York Times ● Aug. 26, 2022

And loyal confederates, Hamlet and I never revealed that we were authors of this tragicomedy.

From "Ophelia" by Lisa Klein

Gorbachev, who struggled to form even a loosely confederated union out of the fifteen Soviet republics, blamed Yeltsin and the leaders of Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Belarus for plotting illegally to dissolve the bloc.

From The New Yorker ● Aug. 3, 2016

After all, it is the armed wing of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union, or the PYD, which wants autonomy for the Kurds within a future confederated Syria.

From Washington Times ● Jul. 5, 2015

President Obama has approved federal assistance for Okanogan County and the Colville confederated tribes to help repair or replace public infrastructure.

From Seattle Times ● Aug. 20, 2014

It was issued the year before the Constitutional Convention that would send the confederated former colonies into the epic called the United States of America. 

From Forbes ● Aug. 18, 2014

Doubtless he also hoped that by diplomatic means or otherwise dissension might be sown between the confederated kings, and their alliance dissolved.

From Canute the Great The Rise of Danish Imperialism during the Viking Age by Laurence Marcellus Larson

In Washington, Bosnian Croats and Muslims signed the constitution of a new federated state, confederating it with Croatia.

From Time Magazine Archive

A combine "conspiring, combining, confederating, agreeing and cooperating between or among themselves."

From Time Magazine Archive

Of the charge, "Guilty, except combining, confederating, and conspiring with Edward Spangler; of this, not guilty."

From A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents Volume 6, part 2: Andrew Johnson by James D. (James Daniel) Richardson

Other tribes in large numbers were standing in precisely the same relations in different parts of the continent without confederating.

From Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines by Lewis H. Morgan

Of the charge, "Guilty, except as to combining, confederating, and conspiring with Edward Spangler; of this, not guilty."

From A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents Volume 6, part 2: Andrew Johnson by James D. (James Daniel) Richardson