A confederacy is a union of people, groups, or states that join together for a shared aim — often politics, war, or trade — while each member still keeps much of its own power. The group is a team of partners, not one new country swallowing the rest. In careful talk it sits very close to confederation; the two are twins from the same Latin parent. In everyday English confederacy feels a little old, literary, or historical. In the United States, the Confederacy almost always means the southern states that broke away in the 1860s Civil War, so Americans hear pain and argument in the word, not a dry textbook label. People also stretch it in a teasing way: a confederacy of dunces is just a bunch of fools acting together. Though actually, news writers often pick confederation for a living political union and leave confederacy for history, or for an alliance that sounds a bit secret or shaky.