cahoots

be in cahoots

To be working together in secret, often with an air of unseemliness. Those two have been whispering all day. I wonder what they're in cahoots about. I think all of those kids are in cahoots because they're all on the surveillance video from the night of the robbery.
See also: cahoots

in cahoots (with someone)

In close, often secretive or conspiratorial cooperation with someone. It turned out that the business tycoon was in cahoots with local law enforcement to have the investigation dropped. We've been in cahoots with a company overseas who can produce the product for half the price.
See also: cahoots
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

in cahoots (with someone)

Rur. in conspiracy with someone; in league with someone. The mayor is in cahoots with the construction company that got the contract for the new building. Those two have been in cahoots before.
See also: cahoots
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.

cahoots

see under in league with.

in league with

Also, in cahoots with. In close cooperation or in partnership with, often secretly or in a conspiracy. For example, "For anybody on the road might be a robber, or in league with robbers" (Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 1859), or We suspect that the mayor is in cahoots with the construction industry. The first term dates from the mid-1500s. The variant, a colloquialism dating from the early 1800s, may come from the French cahute, "a small hut or cabin," and may allude to the close quarters in such a dwelling.
See also: league
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.

in cahoots with someone

If one person is in cahoots another, they are working together secretly to do something, usually something dishonest. He was accused of being in cahoots with the kidnappers. Note: You can also say that two people are in cahoots. They worked in cahoots to set the whole thing up without me knowing.
See also: cahoots, someone
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed.

in cahoots

working or conspiring together, often dishonestly; in collusion. informal
In cahoots is recorded in the early 19th century, in the south and west of the USA, in the sense of ‘partnership’. The origin of cahoot is uncertain; it may come either from the French word cahute meaning ‘a hut’ or from cohort .
1998 Spectator Labour knows that. So do the Tories and that's why the two of them are in cahoots.
See also: cahoots
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary

be in caˈhoots (with somebody)

(informal) be planning or doing something dishonest with somebody else: Some people believe that the company directors are in cahoots with the government.
See also: cahoots
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
See also:
  • be in cahoots
  • be in bed with
  • be in bed with somebody/something
  • in cahoots
  • in cahoots (with someone)
  • in cahoots with someone
  • give the game away
  • give the show away
  • give the (whole) show away
  • wonder
References in periodicals archive
As he put it, "At the end of the day, it's just great art." CONCERT PREVIEW Delgani String Quartet in CAHOOTS With Western Tanagers What: The classical quartet plays with Americana band in a benefit for White Bird Clinic's CAHOOTS When: 7:30 p.m.
Historical fusion
cahoots describes itself as an alternative magazine where "discussion, conversation, inspiration, music, art and literature are promoted as an enriching and essential part of life."
In cahoots
Guitarist Phil Miller assembled In Cahoots just under two decades ago, recently releasing his umpteenth album Out Of The Blue.
Culture: In Cahoots spice up curry night; In Cahoots Ty's Bar & Restaurant, Sparkbrook
Is The Cheesecake Factory in cahoots with Lane Bryant or what?
CAKE ON STEROIDS
Coors claims that Cherena, in cahoots with Harold Cruz Gonzalez, a former Coors account exec at Foote, Cone & Belding, conspired to embezzle money between 1996 and 1998.
Coors executive faces embezzlement charges
The managers allege the deal violates their right to buy the paper and that MediaNews is in cahoots with the Tribune's JOA partner, The Deseret News, and its owner, the Mormon Church, to stifle the Tribune's independence.
RULING DUE IN SALT LAKE
There are times when the world wears the colors and the shadows of our inner life, when reality and imagination appear to be in cahoots. "The imagination is not a State: it is the Human Existence itself," Blake wrote.
Eva Hesse
Sherry Vine is frothy and fine as the bloodthirsty agoraphobe who axes to smithereens a randy pizza delivery boy (Mario Diaz), who turns out to be in cahoots with the evil housekeeper (Jackie Beat).
It's a drag drag drag drag world
So, to return to the Times' and AP's most recent revision of Honduras in the early eighties, one must read passages like this with some suspicion: "The rights commission's report blamed Honduran counterintelligence units trained by Americans and Argentines and backed by the contras for the torture and killings of leftists in the 1980s, when much of Central America was engulfed in civil wars." While the wire story mentions Alvarez and Battalion 3-16, claiming that the commission's report "blamed much of the wrongdoing on Intelligence Batallion 3-16" (sic), it neglects to mention that Honduras' woes were manufactured in, and fully funded by, our own government working in cahoots with yet another wanna-be dictator.
Forgetting the general
She couldn't fake the joy in her voice Or the rain, too light for the umbrella, When she caught sight of his long loping stride On the sidewalk, and they were about to embrace In public, under the bright yellow awning of a bar, To make the villains think they were lovers When really they were in cahoots to betray The fatherland, or a trusted old friend, Though it was possible, with such a couple, For the pretense of love to precede the real thing And the romance of his life could begin.
September evening
President Rodrigo Duterte is 'sure' that the communists, Magdalo group, and his political opponents, whom he fondly calls 'Yellows', were in cahoots to destabilize his government.
Duterte 'sure' Yellows, Reds, Magdalo plotting to overthrow him
In an effort to show that love, Kleinfelder and others organized weekly visits by White Bird Clinic's CAHOOTS mobile crisis service to the alternative high school in downtown Springfield on Wednesday afternoons.
'A safe place to go'
For when Whitney gets close to a sweet lad called Lee (Mitchell Hunt) seemingly by chance, little does she realise who he's in cahoots with.
August 19 FRIDAY; 3-2-See..
Remember, you are in cahoots with someone who will ditch you when you are of no further use to him.
No morals; Yourview
Danny turns out to be a true Mitchell after all when it turns out he's in cahoots with Glenda to steal Roxy's cash.
EASTENDERS