Etymology Dictionary

CABAL,  a party of conspirators; also, a plot.  (F.,—Heb.)   Ben Jonson uses it in the sense of 'a secret:'  'The measuring of the temple; a cabal Found out but lately;' Staple of News, iii. I.  Bp. Bull, vol. i. ser. 3, speaks of the 'ancient cabala or tradition;' here he uses the Hebrew form.  Dryden has:  'When each, by curs'd cabals of women, strove To draw th' indulgent king to partial love;' Aurengzebe, i. I. 19.  He also uses caballing, i.e. conspiring, as a present participle; Art of Poetry, canto iv. l. 972.—F. cabale, 'the Jewes Caball, or a hidden science of divine mysteries which, the Rabbies affirme, was revealed and delivered together with the divine law;' Cotgrave.—Heb. qabbáláh, reception, mysterious doctrine received; from the verb qábal, to take or receive; in the Piel conjugation, qibbel, to adopt a doctrine.  ¶ The cabinet of 1671 was called the cabal, because the initial letters of the names of its members formed the word, viz. Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, Lauderdale; but the word was in use earlier, and this was a mere coincidence.  Der. cabal, verb; cabal-ist, a mystic, cabal-ist-ic. [†]

ADDENDA

Not (F.,—Heb.), but rather (F.,—L.,—Heb.)   The Low Lat. is cabbala (Ducange).   The Heb. qabbáláh is Rabbinical Heb., not Biblical.—A. L. M.