confederate

English edit

Alternative forms edit

confœderate (archaic)

Pronunciation edit

(noun, adjective) IPA^(key): /kənˈfɛdəɹət/
(verb) IPA^(key): /kənˈfɛdəɹeɪt/
Audio (US) (file)

Noun edit

confederate (plural confederates)

A member of a confederacy.
An accomplice in a plot.
- 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 21, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volumes (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:
  He found some of his confederates in gaol.
(psychology) An actor who participates in a psychological experiment pretending to be a subject but in actuality working for the researcher.
Synonym: stooge
- 2011 March 18, David Leavitt, “I Took the Turing Test”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN:
  So how do you win the imitation game? “Just be yourself,” a past confederate advises Christian. But what does it mean to “be yourself”?

Translations edit

a member of a confederacy

Armenian: դաշնակից (hy) (dašnakicʻ)
Bulgarian: , участник в конфедерация (učastnik v konfederacija), съюзен (bg) (sǎjuzen), съюзнически (sǎjuzničeski)
French: confédéré (fr) m, confédérée (fr) f
Russian: конфедера́т (ru) m (konfederát), конфедера́тка (ru) f (konfederátka)

an accomplice in a plot

Bulgarian: заговорник (bg) (zagovornik), съучастник (bg) (sǎučastnik)
Russian: соуча́стник (ru) (součástnik), соо́бщник (ru) (soóbščnik)

an actor in an experiment

Russian: подставное лицо́ (podstavnoje licó)

Adjective edit

confederate (comparative more confederate, superlative most confederate)

Of, relating to, or united in a confederacy
Banded together; allied.
- c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii]:
  All the swords / In Italy, and her confederate arms, / Could not have made this peace.

Quotations edit

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Youth's Antiphony, lines 11-12
Hour after hour, remote from the world's throng,

Work, contest, fame, all life's confederate pleas

Translations edit

of, relating to, or united in a confederacy

Bulgarian: , конфедеративен (konfederativen)

banded together; allied

Bulgarian:

Verb edit

confederate (third-person singular simple present confederates, present participle confederating, simple past and past participle confederated)

(transitive, intransitive) To combine in a confederacy.
- 1958, Parliament of Victoria, “Part I, Division 1, section 4”, in Crimes Act 1958‎^[2], page 806:
  All persons who conspire confederate and agree to murder any person whether a subject of Her Majesty or not and whether within the Queen's dominions or not, […] shall be guilty of a misdemeanour, and shall be liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than ten years.