Collude

 WORD OF THE DAY

collude / verb / kuh-LOOD

Definition
1: to work together secretly especially in order to do something illegal or dishonest
2: conspire, plot

Examples
"Seven … maintenance managers were federally charged … with bilking the transit agency out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by colluding with vendors to charge for goods that were never provided and pocketing the proceeds."
 — Thomas Fitzgerald and Jeremy Roebuck, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 12 Aug. 2021

Decades ago, the Federal Trade Commission doubled down on the absurdity by suing Westinghouse and GE for offering large turbine generators at matching prices, even though the government conceded that the two firms did not collude to fix prices.
— WSJ, 31 Aug. 2021

Did You Know?
Our English "lude" words (allude, collude, delude, elude, and prelude) are based on the Latin verb ludere, meaning "to play."
Collude dates back to 1525 and combines ludere and the prefix col-, meaning "with" or "together." The verb is younger than the related noun collusion, which appeared sometime in the 14th century with the specific meaning "secret agreement or cooperation."
Despite their playful history, collude and collusion have always suggested deceit or trickery rather than good-natured fun.