Now rare. In 6 -plotte. [a. F. complot, 12th c. in Littré, in senses ‘crowd, concourse, struggle,’ in 16th c. ‘combined plan or design.’ Of uncertain origin: see Diez and Littré. On the surface it looks like a compound of com- and plot; but the latter does not occur in F. in a suitable sense (its ordinary meaning being ‘block of wood,’ 14th c. in Godef.). Eng. plot in sense of complot is of about the same age, and perh. an abbreviation of this word.
In 16–17th–c. poetry, complo·t and co·mplot are used indifferently: Shakespeare and Daniell have both. If plot was shortened from the word, it must have been from complo·t. This is the form recognized by Johnson; but 19th-c. orthoepists in general have co·mplot.]
A design of a covert nature planned in concert; a conspiracy, a PLOT.
1577. Holinshed, Chron., II. 573. The disloiall enterprises and complots of malefactors.
1588. Shaks., Tit. A., V. ii. 147. To lay a complot to betray thy Foes. Ibid. (1594), Rich III., III. i. 194. Lord Hastings will not yeeld to our Complots.
1599. Harsnet, Agst. Darell, 12. The Devill and his agents conspire in one Complotte against this Mighty work of the Lord.
1600. Heywood, 2nd Pt. Edw. IV., Wks. 1874, I. 167. I cannot brooke their vile complots.
a. 1734. North, Exam., III. vi. § 49 (1740), 459. Demonstrating to open View these cursed Stratagems and Complots against the King and his Government.
1814. Southey, Roderick, xxii. Just Heaven … hath marr’d Their complots.
1879. Dowden, Southey, 146. In ‘dern privacie’ a bold complot was laid.
