machinate
/'mækineit/
Học thuậtThân thiện
Definition
- 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
- engage in plotting or enter into a conspiracy, swear together
- They conspired to overthrow the government
- arrange by systematic planning and united effort
- machinate a plot
- organize a strike
- devise a plan to take over the director's office