plural cahoots
informal: PARTNERSHIP, LEAGUE —usually used in plural —usually used in phrases like in cahoots to describe people or groups working together or making plans together in secret
… shadowy characters in cahoots who work their secret ends until they are flushed out by intrepid reporting.—Garrison Keillor
… fraud can be nearly impossible to detect whenever two law firm insiders are in cahoots …—Rorie Sherman
… a formidable American beauty who is in cahoots with the C.I.A.—Patrick Anderson
Friends of the terminally ill jeweler are ready to see him go to Ireland. They got into cahoots, as he puts it, to fund a ‘Send Dick to Ireland’ trip with a weekend yard sale …—Andrea Brown
When his wife leaves for a visit with her mother, a young man is thrust into cahoots with gangsters …—VideoHound’s Golden Movie Retriever
Cahoot is used almost exclusively in the phrase “in cahoots,” which means “in an alliance or partnership.” In most contexts, it describes the conspiring activity of people up to no good. (There’s also the rare idiom go cahoots, meaning “to enter into a partnership,” as in “they went cahoots on a new restaurant.”) “Cahoot” may derive from French cahute, meaning “cabin” or “hut,” suggesting the notion of two or more people hidden away working together in secret. “Cahute” is believed to have been formed through the combination of two other words for cabins and huts, “cabane” and “hutte.”