complicit
adjective
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Complicit and Its Accomplices
Complicit is a relatively recent addition to English vocabulary, arriving in the mid-1800s. It is a back-formation from complicity “association or participation in a wrongful act,” which came straight from a French word of the same meaning, complicité, in the 1600s. The oldest English word in this family is the now-obsolete complice (pronounced /COMP-liss/)—defined as “an associate or accomplice especially in crime”—which dates back to the 1400s, when it came from French. These words ultimately derive from the Latin verb meaning “to fold together,” complicare, formed by combining com- (meaning “with,” “together,” or “jointly”) and the verb plicare, meaning “to fold.”
This literal meaning evolved into a figurative one: the definition of complicit, “helping to commit a crime or do wrong,” describes individuals who are “folded together” metaphorically. Complicity and the its cousins accomplice, complicitous, and complice are all part of this gang.
Complicare, in a second of its Latin senses, “to twist together,” is the root of another English word, complicate, which originally meant “to unite intimately by intertwining.” In this case, the idea of things “twisted together” makes sense as an image of something composed of many elements, that is, something complicated. The -pli- of these words is from plicare (“to fold”), which is also the root of ply, the verb meaning “to twist together” or the noun meaning “one of several layers.”
Other words that derive from plicare are also illuminated by their etymologies: explicit “revealed without ambiguity” ultimately comes from Latin explicare, meaning “to unfold,” while implicit, meaning “implied,” descends from a Latin verb whose roots literally mean “to fold in.”
Examples of complicit in a Sentence
Glenn Garner, Deadline, 12 Sep. 2025
Israel says the targets were complicit in planning the October 7th, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and in directing Hamas movements in the war in Gaza.
—Greg Dixon, NPR, 9 Sep. 2025
By linking the campaign to sovereignty, Maduro is seeking to rally domestic support and push back against Washington's portrayal of his government as complicit in the drug trade.
—Amir Daftari, MSNBC Newsweek, 8 Sep. 2025
The risk with this approach is that Harvard would live to fight another day, but become complicit in establishing a precedent that goes against the fundamental rights inherent in our democracy.
—Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Time, 5 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for complicit
Cite this Entry
“Complicit.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/complicit. Accessed 17 Sep. 2025.
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