Accomplices

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Individuals who assist or support someone in committing a crime or illegal activity
2. Partners in wrongdoing who share responsibility for facilitating an offense
3. People who collaborate with another in achieving a secret or illicit goal

Etymology: The plural "accomplices" is simply the regular plural of "accomplice," so the history belongs to the singular. The most surprising part is that the initial "a" is not originally part of the word at all. English took the word from Old French "complice," meaning "confederate," which descended from Latin "complicāre," "to fold together." The Latin image of things folded together gave rise to the sense of people bound together in a shared undertaking. The word arrived in English in the mid-1500s, first attested in 1550, in the form "a complice." Over time the article "a" fused onto the noun, so speakers came to treat "accomplice" as a single word. The change was helped along by the similarity to "accomplish," which shares the same prefix and carries a sense of achieving something together, a link that reinforced the idea of partners working toward a common end.

Synonyms: partners, co-conspirators, accessories, collaborators, confederates

Antonyms: opponents, adversaries, enemies