scheme
verb/skiːm/
/skiːm/
Verb Forms
| present simple I / you / we / they scheme | /skiːm/ /skiːm/ |
| he / she / it schemes | /skiːmz/ /skiːmz/ |
| past simple schemed | /skiːmd/ /skiːmd/ |
| past participle schemed | /skiːmd/ /skiːmd/ |
| -ing form scheming | /ˈskiːmɪŋ/ /ˈskiːmɪŋ/ |
- [intransitive, transitive] (disapproving) to make secret plans to do something that will help yourself and possibly harm others synonym plot
- scheme (against somebody) She seemed to feel that we were all scheming against her.
- scheme to do something His colleagues, meanwhile, were busily scheming to get rid of him.
- scheme something Her enemies were scheming her downfall.
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- [transitive] scheme something (South African English, informal) to think or form an opinion about something
- What do you scheme?
- ‘Do you think he'll come?’ ‘I scheme so.’
Word Originmid 16th cent. (denoting a figure of speech): from Latin schema, from Greek skhēma ‘form, figure’. An early sense was ‘diagram of the position of celestial objects’, giving rise to ‘diagram, outline’, which led to the current senses. The unfavourable sense “plot” arose in the mid 18th cent.
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