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.”
Example Sentences
WIRED, 26 Aug. 2022 Rashad Robinson, the president of Color of Change, tweeted that the hearing showed that Twitter, YouTube and other social media platforms were complicit in helping Trump supporters organize the bloody insurrection. Naomi Nix, Washington Post, 12 July 2022 Others have done a fine job showing how President Biden is complicit in stimulating demand and constraining supply (Letters, July 1), the inevitable result of which is price hikes. WSJ, 4 July 2022 Continue it’s going to damage the entire NFL, the New York times report that showed that the Texans were complicit in giving him nondisclosure agreements to give to his massage therapist. Laura Johnston, cleveland, 9 June 2022 The Guatemalan government is complicit in this violence, too. Shahrazad Encinias, refinery29.com, 8 June 2022 But the American public was complicit, voraciously consuming the courtroom drama and callously weighing in on it – less often based on testimony than star power. Steven P. Dinkin, San Diego Union-Tribune, 12 June 2022 The findings, disclosed at a news conference in April, raised questions about whether medical authorities were complicit in a cover-up. New York Times, 3 June 2022 Doctors have been complicit in this breach by not raising our voices to demand greater transparency and independent review of the pharmaceutical industry. Paul Fenyves, STAT, 19 May 2022 See More Word History
back-formation from complicity, probably after explicit, implicit
Note: Strictly speaking, the derivation of complicit from complicity is not a back-formation, unless -y is taken as the suffix -y entry 2, which seems unlikely. The derivation presumably depends on the acceptability of complicit beside the established words explicit and implicit. A regularly formed adjective derivative of complicity is complicitous.
1861, in the meaning defined above