The term collusion has an interesting history. It was first used in a Chaucer poem in 1397, spelled as collucione. Over time, variations like collusyon and collusioun emerged, but eventually collusion became the standard spelling. The word predates the verb collude by more than a century and can be traced back to Old French collusion and Latin collusionem, which referred to the act of colluding. The Latin verb colludere meant “to play together” but in a legal context, it meant “to have a secret understanding” or cooperation. The roots of the word include the prefix cum-, meaning “with,” and the Latin word ludere, meaning “to play.”
