Complicit

How to spell complicit

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce complicit

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does complicit mean?

1. adjectiveInvolved with others in an illegal or morally wrong act.

Complicit in a sentence

• The manager was found complicit in covering up the missing funds.

• By staying silent about the fraud, the auditor became complicit in it.

Where does complicit come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb complicare, which literally meant 'to fold together', formed from com- 'together' and plicare 'to fold'. The same plicare root, meaning 'to fold', survives in a whole family of English words such as 'apply', 'imply', 'reply', and 'pliable', all of which carry a sense of bending or folding. In Latin a person who was 'folded together' with others in a scheme was an accomplice, and from that idea English developed the noun 'complicity' in the 1600s to describe a guilty partnership in wrongdoing. The adjective 'complicit' is actually a fairly recent back-formation from 'complicity', appearing only in the nineteenth century to describe someone who shares in the blame. Because the noun ends in -ity but the adjective ends in -it, writers sometimes overcorrect the spelling; remembering the shared 'plic' fold in 'apply' and 'reply' helps keep the single c and single t in place.

How the word is built

• com- (together)
• plic (fold)
• -it (adjective, from Latin past participle)