v. [ad. L. collūd-ĕre to play with, act collusively, f. col- + lūdĕre to play.]
1. intr. To act in secret concert with, chiefly in order to trick or baffle some third person or party; to play into one another’s hands; to conspire, plot, connive; to play false; to act in play merely.
1525. Aberd. Reg., V. 15 (Jam.). Bot quhar he hes colludit with vderis.
1537. Inst. Chr. Man, H ij b. He attayned the most part therof by … crafte, and specially by colludyng with great kynges.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., 770. There is no doubt to be made, but that Epicurus Colluded in all this; himself not Believing a jot of it, nor any such Gods at all.
a. 1734. North, Exam., III. vii. § 36 (1740), 529. The French sought to weaken the King by colluding with his factious Enemies.
1820. Ann. Reg. Chron., 352. Bribes … offered them to collude in the evasion.
1884. Sir C. E. Pollock, in Law Rep. Q. B. Div. XII. 172. The defendant … did not collude with the plaintiffs.
† 2. trans. To stir up or bring about by collusion. Obs.
a. 1797. H. Walpole, Mem. Geo. II., II. 68. This war had been colluded and abetted.
1834. Fraser’s Mag., IX. 76. To collude and actuate a large portion of the moral and physical materials of the nation to mischief.
† 3. To elude, evade by trickery. Obs.
1642. T. Taylor, God’s Judgem., I. II. xxi. 249. Compacting shall not infringe or collude the sacred Law.
1679. T. Puller, Moder. Ch. Eng. (1843), 122. Any loose sense [of oaths], that the taker by any evasion may collude the design of the law.
Hence Colluding vbl. sb. and ppl. a.
1611. Cotgr., Colludant, colluding, dealing, by cousin.
1625. Bp. Mountagu, App. Cæsar., 43. Time-serving colludings with the State.
1681. H. More, in Glanvill’s Sadd., I. Postcr. (1726), 24. Some colluding Knave suborned by the Witch.
