collude

verb

col·​lude kə-ˈlüd 

colluded; colluding; colludes

intransitive verb

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

… the owners started to collude loosely on salaries for free agents.

—William Oscar Johnson and Albert Kim

… the travails of the world's two biggest art-auction businesses, … rivals that now stand accused by the U.S. Justice Department of colluding to rig the auction market by fixing their sales-commission rates.

—Robert Hughes

… argues that while the kids are not entitled to collective representation, major universities are permitted to collude to prevent players from being paid for their work.

—David Sirota

Did you know?

Collude Has Latin Roots

Colluding—working secretly with others to do something deceitful or illegal—is not a game, but you'd never know it if you took your cues on the meaning of collude solely from its etymology. Collude comes from the Latin verb colludere, which in turn combines the prefix com-, meaning "together," and the verb ludere, "to play." Ludere, in turn, comes from ludus, meaning "game, play, or sport." (Ludus is also the source of the adjective ludicrous and the noun interlude). Collude has a related noun—collusion—which carries the specific meaning "secret agreement or cooperation." Despite their playful history, collude and collusion have always suggested illicit trickery rather than good-natured fun.

Synonyms of collude

• plot
• conspire
• scheme

Examples of collude in a Sentence

The two companies had colluded to fix prices.

accused of colluding to block the sale of the vacant land

Recent Examples on the Web

Rights groups have accused the military of colluding with the settlers. — Arkansas Online, 30 Sep. 2026

Both developments create concerns among some observers that the companies are overseeing inflated volumes or, at worst, are experiencing wash trading, in which traders collude to buy and sell an asset to create a false sense of economic activity. — Davis Giangiulio,ananya Chetia, CNBC, 30 Sep. 2026

Kaepernick alleged that team owners colluded to keep him out of the league because of his protest and filed a grievance against the NFL in 2017, which ultimately ended in a settlement. — Jaden Thompson, Footwear News, 26 Sep. 2026

Nitta said the Emergence experiment is the first to shed light on how AI agents collude to bypass guardrails and break confinement, as OpenAI has yet to release all of its findings from the Hugging Face incident. — Jake Angelo, semafor.com, 15 Sep. 2026

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from Latin collūdere "to play (with), make sport, (in law) act in collusion with," from col- col- + lūdere "to play" — more at ludicrous

First Known Use

1525, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for collude

• accrued
• allude
• conclude
• construed
• debuted
• delude
• elude
• endued
• ensued
• eschewed
• etude
• exclude

Podcast

Get Word of the Day delivered to your inbox!

Legal Definition

collude

intransitive verb

col·​lude kə-ˈlüd 

colluded; colluding

: to agree or cooperate secretly for a fraudulent or otherwise illegal purpose