Furtive \Fur"tive\, a. [L. furtivus, fr. furtum theft, fr. fur
thief, akin to ferre to bear: cf. F. furtif. See Fertile.]
Stolen; obtained or characterized by stealth; sly; secret;
stealthy; as, a furtive look. --Prior.
[1913 Webster]
A hasty and furtive ceremony. --Hallam.
[1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
furtive
adj 1: marked by quiet and caution and secrecy; taking pains to
avoid being observed; "a furtive manner"; "a lurking
prowler"; "a sneak attack"; "stealthy footsteps"; "a
surreptitious glance at his watch"; "someone skulking
in the shadows" [syn: lurking, skulking, sneak(a),
sneaky, stealthy, surreptitious]
2: secret and sly or sordid; "backstairs gossip"; "his low
backstairs cunning"- A.L.Guerard; "backstairs intimacies";
"furtive behavior" [syn: backstair, backstairs]
WordNet (r) 2.0
70 Moby Thesaurus words for "furtive":
artful, back-door, backstairs, calculating, chiseling, clandestine,
collusive, conspiratorial, covert, covinous, crafty, cunning,
deceitful, doggo, false, falsehearted, feline, finagling, foxy,
fraudulent, guileful, hidden, hidden out, hidlings,
hole-and-corner, hugger-mugger, in ambush, in hiding, in the wings,
indirect, insidious, lurking, on tiptoe, private, privy, prowling,
pussyfoot, pussyfooted, quiet, scheming, secret, secretive, sharp,
shifty, skulking, slinking, slinky, slippery, sly, sneaking,
sneaky, stealing, stealthy, surreptitious, treacherous, trickish,
tricky, two-faced, under cover, under the table, under-the-counter,
under-the-table, undercover, underground, underhand, underhanded,
unobtrusive, untrustworthy, waiting concealed, wily
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
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