CABAL • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Cabal

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/kəbˈɑl/ Listen

noun

Cabal n.

1.

Tradition; occult doctrine. See Cabala. (Obs.)

2.

A secret. (Obs.) "The measuring of the temple, a cabal found out but lately."

3.

A number of persons united in some close design, usually to promote their private views and interests in church or state by intrigue; a secret association composed of a few designing persons; a junto. Note: It so happend, by a whimsical coincidence, that in 1671 the cabinet consisted of five persons, the initial letters of whose names made up the word cabal; Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale.

4.

The secret artifices or machinations of a few persons united in a close design; intrigue. "By cursed cabals of women."

Synonyms: Junto; intrigue; plot; combination; conspiracy. Cabal, Combination, Faction. An association for some purpose considered to be bad is the idea common to these terms. A combination is an organized union of individuals for mutual support, in urging their demands or resisting the claims of others, and may be good or bad according to circumstances; as, a combiniation of workmen or of employers to effect or to prevent a change in prices. A cabal is a secret association of a few individuals who seek by cunning practices to obtain office and power. A faction is a larger body than a cabal, employed for selfish purposes in agitating the community and working up an excitement with a view to change the existing order of things. "Selfishness, insubordination, and laxity of morals give rise to combinations, which belong particularly to the lower orders of society. Restless, jealous, ambitious, and little minds are ever forming cabals. Factions belong especially to free governments, and are raised by busy and turbulent spirits for selfish purposes".

verb

Cabal v. i. (past & past part. caballed; pres. part. caballing) To unite in a small party to promote private views and interests by intrigue; to intrigue; to plot. "Caballing still against it with the great."

See images of 'Cabal'

Etymology of 'Cabal'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Cabal" Quotes from Famous Books

... Femmes Savantes, and Le Misanthrope, works that were perilous ventures on the popular intelligence, big vessels to launch on streams running to shallows. The Tartuffe hove into view as an enemy's vessel; it offended, not Dieu mais les devots, as the Prince de Conde explained the cabal raised against it to ...

— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... I wonder not they were weary of you; last night was one of their cabal-nights: they have 'em three times a week and meet by turns at one another's apartments, where they come together like the coroner's inquest, to sit upon the murdered reputations of the week. You and I are excluded, and it was once proposed that all the male sex should be excepted; but somebody ...

— The Way of the World • William Congreve

... I mentioned in my last about the four Princes, I now know not to be true with respect to the Duke of Gloucester, who has held aloof from all cabal with them, and even declared in the House of Lords that ...

— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham

... won, bearing at last the tri-color we all love and honor, as the symbol of our homes and the hope of the world, and thought how more grandly, even in her ruin, Richmond stood in the light of its crowding stars, rather than the den of a desperate cabal, whose banner was known in no city nor sea, but as the ensign of corsairs, and hailed only by fustian peers, now rent in the grip of our eagle, and without a fane or an abiding-place. Let us go on, not conquerors, but Republicans, ...

— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... The cabal of stock-jobbing politicians, by whom he is surrounded, must give way to him if he is firm. They have no standing place in the confidence and respect of their fellow-countrymen, they represent nothing but the Stock Exchange speculations in which they ...

— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria

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