A person who works secretly with others to do something dishonest or illegal.
From Latin 'colludere' (to play together, to conspire), formed from 'col-' (together) + 'ludere' (to play). The 'col' prefix became 'col' to assimilate with the following 'l'. The suffix '-er' denotes an agent or person.
The word 'collude' originally meant 'to play together,' which is why 'colluders' are really just people 'playing along' in a conspiracy—the root ludere is the same 'lud' that gives us 'ludicrous,' so there's something almost playfully deceptive about the word's origins.
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