Word of the DayTuesday, September 25, 2001
cabal
\kuh-BAHL; kuh-BAL\ , noun:1.
A secret, conspiratorial association of plotters or intriguers whose purpose is usually to bring about an overturn especially in public affairs.
2.
The schemes or plots of such an association.
1.
To form a cabal; to conspire; to intrigue; to plot.
Quotes:
If you constantly disagreed with Winters, he wrote you out of his cabal, his conspiracy against the poetry establishment.
-- Richard Elman, Namedropping: Mostly Literary Memoirs
My father always had been a collector. There were the stamps, National Geographics, scrapbooks filled with his favorite political cartoons, and booklets justifying his belief that the world was under the control of a global cabal of elites unified by such organizations as the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Freemasons.
-- Frederick Kempe, Father/Land
But the new world of toys is by no means simply the product of a profit-mad cabal of toy pushers discovering new ways of exploiting the child market.
-- Gary Cross, Kids' Stuff
The Anti-Federalists were not simply concerned that Congress was too small relatively--too small to be truly representative of the great diversity of the nation. Congress was also too small absolutely--too small to be immune from cabal and intrigue.
-- Akhil Reed Amar, The Bill of Rights
Origin:
Cabal derives from Medieval Latin cabala, a transliteration of Hebrew qabbalah, "received," hence "traditional, lore," from qabal, "to receive." The evolution in sense is: "(secret) tradition, secret, secret plots or intrigues, secret meeting, secret meeters, a group of plotters or intriguers."
