confederate

See also: Confederate

English

Alternative forms

• confœderate (archaic)

Pronunciation

• (noun, adjective) IPA^(key): /kənˈfɛdəɹət/
• (verb) IPA^(key): /kənˈfɛdəɹeɪt/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

confederate (plural confederates)

1. A member of a confederacy.
2. 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.

   1. (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

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
• German: Konföderierter (de) m, Konföderierte (de) pl or 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

confederate (comparative more confederate, superlative most confederate)

1. Of, relating to, or united in a confederacy
2. 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

• 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

of, relating to, or united in a confederacy

• Bulgarian: , конфедеративен (konfederativen)

banded together; allied

• Bulgarian:

Verb

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

1. (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.

Derived terms

• confederately
• confederateship
• confederatism
• confederative
• nonconfederate
• unconfederated

 

Italian

Etymology 1

Adjective

confederate f pl

1. feminine plural of confederato

Participle

confederate f pl

1. feminine plural of confederato

Etymology 2

Noun

confederate f pl

1. plural of confederata

Etymology 3

Verb

confederate

1. inflection of confederare:
   1. second-person plural present indicative
   2. second-person plural imperative

Spanish

Verb

confederate

1. second-person singular voseo imperative of confederar combined with te