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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Furtive \Fur"tive\, adjective [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.
A hasty and furtive ceremony. --Hallam.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
furtive
adjective
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}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
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
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Definitions retrieved from local copies of the freely distributed DICT client/server software and databases. Click here for database copyright information. - KM |