Word of the Day Archive
Sunday February 1, 2004
surreptitious \suhr-uhp-TISH-uhs; suh-rep-\
, adjective:
1. Done, made, or gotten by stealth.
2. Acting with or marked by stealth.
The monitoring is not surreptitious; on the contrary, the defendant and his or her attorney are required to be given notice of the government's listening activities.
-- John Ashcroft, "National Security; Prevention of Acts of Violence and Terrorism", Federal Register 66, no. 211, October 26, 2001
While men's appetites are driven by availability, women's are often driven by cravings. A dab of chocolate here, a pinch of sugar there, and some surreptitious midnight Dairy Queen runs lurk behind a woman's oh-so-virtuous bran breakfast, salad lunch, and grilled fish dinner.
-- Wendy Hubbert, "The skinny on male/female dieting", Redbook, October 1, 2001
Now she made a surreptitious glance toward the doorway into the hall.
-- Naeem Murr, The Boy
Surreptitious comes from Latin surrepticius, "stolen, secret, surreptitious," from surripere, "to take away secretly; to steal," from sub-, "under" + rapere, "to seize, to snatch."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for surreptitious
