machinations [mak-uh-ney-shuhns]

noun:
scheming or crafty actions or artful designs intended to accomplish some usually evil end

Examples:

Instead of a unified empire, the smaller kingdoms of the Heptarchy still dominate, their various dangerous machinations providing the raison d’être for the differing orders. (Valorie Castellanos Clark, Brigitte Knightley’s debut romantasy novel is as irresistible as its title, Los Angeles Times, July 2025)

His machinations were getting no coverage to speak of, but even at that early stage, Vrabel - Volin noted - was purging the Patriots roster of players connected to his predecessors, one-year head coach Jerod Mayo and before that, legendary head coach Bill Belichick. (Jon Vankin, Mike Vrabel's Ruthless Purge of Bill Belichick Patriots Players Continues, Newsweek, August 2022)

Created in the 1980s by Tim Rice and the genius songwriters behind ABBA, Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, Chess the Musical is a densely-packed and complicated story about the machinations of the shadowy secret forces of the United States and Russia in the midst of the Cold War, as their two chess masters battle for supremacy. (Brenda Harwood, Cold war machinations in densely-packed show, Otago Daily Times, May 2025)

The more complex your lives become with intellectual machinations, piles of paper, and social intrigue, the less you are aware of the Simplicity of the Moment. (Laurence Galian, The Sun at Midnight: The Revealed Mysteries of the Ahlul Bayt Sufis)

Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves. (William Shakespeare, 'King Lear')

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late 15c, machinacion, 'a plotting, an intrigue,' from Old French machinacion 'plot, conspiracy, scheming, intrigue' and directly from Latin machinationem (nominative machinatio) 'device, contrivance,' noun of action from past-participle stem of machinari 'to contrive skillfully, to design; to scheme, to plot,' from machina 'machine, engine; device trick' (Online Etymology Dictionary)