furtive

Use Furtive in a sentence

adjective

taken, done, used, etc., surreptitiously or by stealth; secret: a furtive glance.

sly; shifty: a furtive manner.

Origin:
1480–90; < Latin furtīvus, equivalent to furt(um) theft (compare fūr thief) + -īvus -ive

Related forms

fur·tive·ly, adverb

fur·tive·ness, noun

Synonyms
1. clandestine, covert. 2. underhand, cunning.

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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Link To furtive

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World English Dictionary

furtive (ˈfɜːtɪv)

—*adj*
	characterized by stealth; sly and secretive

[C15: from Latin furtīvus stolen, clandestine, from furtum a theft, from fūr a thief; related to Greek phōr thief]

'furtively

—*adv*

'furtiveness

—n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
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Furtive is an SAT word you need to know.

So is obeisance. Does it mean:

depraved, villainous, or base.

a movement of the body expressing deep respect or deferential courtesy, as before a superior; a bow, curtsy, or other similar gesture.

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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

furtive

late 15c., from Fr. furtif, from L. furtivus "stolen, hidden, secret," from furtum "theft, robbery," from fur (gen. furis) "thief." Related: Furtiveness

Example sentences

Still, here was the author's attempt to allow opposites-peril and bliss,

furtive lovers and traditional family-to harmonize.

Last season's ending was pyrotechnic, furtive, dramatic and fraught.

Entrapment has long been a factor in the enforcement of vice laws, which seek

to punish behavior that is furtive and widespread.

These earliest mammals were small, furtive creatures.

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Matching Quote

"On starlight nights I used to pace up and down those long, cold streets, scowling at the little, sleeping houses on either side, with their storm-windows and covered back porches. They were flimsy shelters, most of them poorly built of light wood, with spindle porch-posts horribly mutilated by the turning-lathe. Yet for all their frailness, how much jealousy and envy and unhappiness some of them managed to contain! The life that went on in them seemed to me made up of evasions and negations; shifts to save cooking, to save washing and cleaning, devices to propitiate the tongue of gossip. This guarded mode of existence was like living under a tyranny. People's speech, their voices, their very glances, became furtive and repressed. Every individual taste, every natural appetite, was bridled by caution. The people asleep in those houses, I thought, tried to live like the mice in their own kitchens; to make no noise, to leave no trace, to slip over the surface of things in the dark."

-Willa Cather