Definition

1. Verb:
   • To engage in secret or intricate plotting; to scheme, often with others, for a specific, usually illicit or harmful, purpose.
   • To devise, arrange, or organize (a scheme or plan) through careful, often secretive, planning and effort.

Usage

• Transitive Verb: To machinate something (e.g., a plot, a scheme, an overthrow).
• Intransitive Verb: To machinate (often followed by 'against' someone or something).

Examples

• Intransitive Usage:
  • The disgruntled nobles began to machinate against the king.
  • He was accused of machinating to seize control of the company.
• Transitive Usage:
  • The group machinated a complex plan to discredit their rival.
  • For years, they had been machinating the overthrow of the regime.

Advanced Usage

• "To machinate against": To plot or scheme with the intent to harm, undermine, or overthrow a person, group, or institution.
  • The faction continued to machinate against the established leadership.
• The word often implies a level of cunning, secrecy, and deliberate, step-by-step planning over time.

Variants and Related Words

• Machination (n): The act of machinating; a crafty scheme or plot.
  • His political machinations were eventually exposed.
• Machinator (n): A person who machinates; a schemer.

Synonyms

• Conspire: To secretly plan with others to commit an unlawful or harmful act.
• Plot: To plan secretly, especially something illicit.
• Scheme: To make secret and often intricate plans.
• Contrive: To plan with ingenuity; devise.

Antonyms

• Neglect: To fail to plan or care for.
• Disorganize: To destroy the organization or orderly arrangement of.
• Reveal: To make known; disclose.

Related Phrases

• To be involved in machinations: To be participating in secret, complex scheming.
  • She was suspected of being involved in the machinations within the board.
• A web of machination: A complex, interconnected series of secret plots.
  • The scandal was the result of a vast web of machination.

Verb

1. engage in plotting or enter into a conspiracy, swear together
   • They conspired to overthrow the government
2. arrange by systematic planning and united effort
   • machinate a plot
   • organize a strike
   • devise a plan to take over the director's office