Dictionary.com has named complicit its 2017 word of the year. CNN has the full story.

Oxford English Dictionary defines complicit as “involved with others in an activity that is unlawful or morally wrong”, and it dates it back to the 1940s, as a back-formation from complicity.

Etymology Online explains the history of the word complicity: dating back to the 1650s, it’s from the French complicité, from Old French complice (“accomplice, comrade, companion”, 14th century), from late Latin complicem, accusative of complex “partner, confederate,” from Latin complicare “to fold together,” from com “with, together” + plicare “to fold, weave”.

See Slate‘s article “Mr. Complicit” from earlier this year. That’s about Mike Pence, btw. Not Jared Kushner, or Mike Flynn. But that’s another story altogether …

***