surreptitious
/ˌsʌrəpˈtɪʃəs
/adjective
Kept secret, especially because it would not be approved of: low wages were supplemented by surreptitious payments from tradesmen...
- Thanks to e-mail, the modern workplace is a hive of covert communication and surreptitious sociability.
- The stowing of the rubbish seemed surreptitious, even furtive, to a young and ignorant mind.
- Very often staff feel that their colleagues have been silently and invisibly spirited out of the company in a surreptitious and clandestine manner.
Synonyms
secret, stealthy, clandestine, secretive, sneaky, sly, furtive, concealed, hidden, undercover, covert, veiled, under the table, cloak-and-dagger, backstair, indirect;
Military black
Derivatives
surreptitiousness
- If you ask me, a little more surreptitiousness might have worked.
- Our list of options is limited - we'll have to stop them with quickness, surreptitiousness and efficiency.
Origin
Late Middle English (in the sense 'obtained by suppression of the truth'): from Latin surreptitius (from the verb surripere, from sub- 'secretly' + rapere 'seize') + -ous.
Rhymes
- medicine society
- medicine spoon
- medicine tree
- medicine wheel
- medicine wolf
- medicine woman
- medicining
- Medici print
- Medici reproduction
- Medici vase
- medick
- medico
- medico-
- medico-chirurgical
- medicus
- mediety
- medieval
- medieval history
- medievalise
- medievalism
- medievalist
- medievalize
- medieval Latin
- medievally
- medifixed