How To Use Furtive In A Sentence

Psst! Come over here!" one youth hissed furtively.
It's almost unbearably tempting to suggest a furtive flick on the nose.
furtive behavior
However, Frank's furtive visits to strange bars frequented by men in ascots and Cathy's friendship with Raymond, a noble black gardener, set the neighbourhood gossips tittering.
Taking a furtive glance around for his father, Joe considered his next move.

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Shortly after my wife left for her evening walk, Zachery sidled up to me furtively.
He cast a furtive glance around the square and, seeing that his admirer had not yet gone away, bent over his boot again.
People slipped by silently, furtively, like ghosts -- white-faced women carrying infants in their arms; fathers leading children by the hand; singly, and in couples, and in families-all fleeing out of the city of death. Page 7
Picking up his briefcase, he headed towards the police station, noticing a little more furtive activity today than usual.
He watched a lizard scuttle furtively along the join between wall and ceiling, and disappear into a crevice.
But if you are a chameleon, you can sneak in and move ahead with the furtiveness required in one-day cricket.
This month, although the snow is on the ground, we must devote our thoughts to our little furry friends who will emerge in spring, and to two new rifles that will make their furtive existences even chancier than they are now. Gun Review: Two new varmint rifles you can actually afford
She cast a furtive glance over her shoulder.
But the tugging tides of conservatism outlast most swells of enthusiasm and a series of setbacks conspired to drive London's orchestras furtively back into their shells, like Galapagos tortoises in a hurricane.
Furtive and nimble tipplers and topers nightly dodged through alleys and back yards under the noses of the flashlamp-carrying guards.
The smell of perfume takes me right back to those furtive fumblings.
The look the officer had given Ian had been furtive, almost guilty, and Ian sensed disapproval in the man's silence.
Of late he has been paying furtive but detailed attention to his hair and his neckties and the hang of his clothes.
A group of them were on a boulder midst the darkest part of the forest. Furtive shadowy glances.
We may as well have been poker players, there were so many furtive glances.
And with all attention directed towards the death-struggle just up the road, no one was paying the least heed to the big Kabuli badmash scratching himself furtively outside the Commander-in-Chief's funkhole. Flashman And The Mountain Of Light
Almost all these bizarre images have a furtive, amateurish air about them; they were never meant to be seen in daylight.
The reality of his feeling reference to the painful position of the defendant's father, the sincerity of his regret on behalf of the bank, for the deplorable exigency under which proceedings had been instituted, spread a kind of blankness through the court; men frowned thoughtfully, and one or two ladies shed furtive tears. The Imperialist
He had been stealing furtive looks in her direction for the whole time his conversation with the other girls was taking place.
In the absence of vibratory media the noises of the reef are isolated. furtive, echoless — staccato accidentals and dull dissonances out of tune with the soothing theme of the sea. My Tropic Isle
I didn't miss the furtive glance he cast around to check if anyone was looking.
Senior staff held furtive meetings to discuss their options. Times, Sunday Times
Arnold, even as he issues obligatory denials, is, unlike Bill, neither furtive nor guilty.
From the positions of the heads and eyes, do they look honest and straightforward, shy, or furtive and untrustworthy?
Martin dispensed royal largess, inviting everybody up, farm-hands, a stableman, and the gardener's assistant from the hotel, the barkeeper, and the furtive hobo who slid in like a shadow and like a shadow hovered at the end of the bar. Chapter 17
Rayed out from plaster-walls which have been soaking in it for five centuries, driven up in palpable waves of heat from the flags, lying like a lake of white metal in the Piazza, however recklessly this truly royal sun may beam, in Siena you will feel furtive and astare for sudden death. Earthwork out of Tuscany Being Impressions and Translations of Maurice Hewlett
He had a little electric stove in his room at Titchfield that he had bought at the local ironmonger's and had adapted furtively to work from the lighting circuit; it overloaded the circuit, but warmed the room beautifully. In Spite of Their Declaration of Bombs
Glad to escape so easily, the young acolyte disappeared down the alley of fig trees, not without a furtive look at the patches of chickweed around their roots, the possible ambuscade of creeping or saltant vermin. On the Frontier
A second-rate novelist and a furtively fabricating social commentator, he was homophobic, anti-feminist, unsociable, anti-intellectual, authoritarian and latently violent.
Micromounters are looked upon as some sort of secret society that does furtive things under microscopes for inexplicable reasons.
Farther back, there's furtive jack-in-the-pulpit and mayapple, and along our driveway, wild columbine's whiskered pendants.
More than honest, it's the image of a major artist courageously butting her head against the furtiveness and sadism of Stalinist and post-Stalinist bureaucracy.
I saw him cast a furtive glance at the woman at the table to his right.
So I avoided their looks, shrinking close to the curbstone and by furtive glances directing my progress. The Dignity of Dollars
Nor can you presently pass the beerhouse with its brighter gas and its queer, screening windows, nor get a whiff of foul air and foul language from its door, nor see the crumpled furtive figure — some rascal child — that slinks past us down the steps. In the Days of the Comet
I saw him cast a furtive glance at the woman at the table to his right.
She wiped at it furtively, casting a baleful glance around to see if anyone noticed.
The man's furtive manner gave rise to the suspicion of the theft among the policemen.
Today's word is une oeillade, meaning "a furtive glance Book Lists: Geographically Speaking
The new game finds our furtive hero having to infiltrate a diverse assortment of sites such as military airbases, harbors and secret government installations.
Then he gave a furtive glance towards his companions before turning his back on them completely.
In the 1980s, some primatologists noticed that monkeys and apes - unlike other mammals - sometimes deceived members of their own species, in order to trick them out of food or sneak off for some furtive courtships.
And so one night, having indulged a little too freely in a local wine called ‘The Tears of Christ,’ I confessed to the hotel padrone a furtive secret.
There was nothing furtive or nervous about him - it was as if he was perfectly entitled to be there.
She cast a furtive glance over her shoulder.
The other low-ranked senior level skaters with no chance at a national title sneaked furtive glances in my direction. Welcome to My World
To look or peer furtively, as from a place of concealment.
I watched the man with furtive caution as we traversed the forest, for I didn't trust him, even if he did not seem villainous.
When their meal arrived, he forgot about them and did not notice the furtive glances the two reclusive men cast their way, although he glanced idly at them when they left the tavern.
The look in his eyes became furtive.
He cast an oddly furtive glance at her.
My friend was having problems of her own, every few moments ducking her head to furtively expunge small pieces of gristle into her napkin.
We have a Toronto court to thank for the massive and completely misleading exposure that the grainy security film that caused me to appear furtive has caused. Times, Sunday Times
A figure emerged from the open door and moved along the alley, not furtively, but with a natural noiselessness like that of a jungle beast. The Bloody Crown of Conan
They are shunned, broken, dispossessed, and live a bleak, furtive life of agonizing loneliness.
There was a sudden wave of tittering from my daughter's classmates and furtive looks.
He chloroformed me’ she continued, and her eyes widened in comprehension as Jackson shot her a furtive glance, then glanced over at the nurse, who was listening to the exchange with interest.
Brambles, gorse and broom rapidly overtake untended ground and soon create an impenetrable terrain - ideal habitat for furtive species such as the wild boar and Iberian wolf which survive here.
At the same time, the card cheat is glancing furtively around to make sure no one is watching while he pulls an extra ace of clubs from his belt.
Or that furtive-looking microbiologist in your hall of residence, who never spoke but ended up getting a first?
What is that defective being, with calfless legs and stooping shoulders, weak in body and mind, inert, pusillanimous and stupid, whose premature wrinkles and furtive glance, tell of misery and degradation? Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments Comprising the Writings of Hammond, Harper, Christy, Stringfellow, Hodge, Bledsoe, and Cartrwright on This Important Subject
While lord of the castle, he longs for useful work such as he did at the forge, but even his furtive attempts to fix a castle lock are foiled.
Policemen filed in; one or two cases were tried and dismissed, the Malay witnesses trembling from head to foot, and then the wretch from the cage was brought in looking hardly human, as, from under his shaggy, unshaven hair and unplaited pigtail which hung over his chest, he cast furtive, frightened glances at the array before him. The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither
There was no pop-eyed lust, no furtive boner, no drooling over dusky bazooms and stiletto gams. Life As We Know It
When talking to Mr. Horsfield, who will become her lover, she powders her face, appearing to Horsfield as controlled, furtive, and calculating.
New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly sent many scrambling when he used "furtive" — meaning "done by stealth," derived from furs, the Latin word for thief — to describe how the Times Square bomber looked in surveillance footage. Our 'Pragmatic,' 'Ebullient' Year of 'Austerity'
Other eyes regarded him furtively, for this was a violation of the rules.
Simon gnawed furtively at his onion.
Soames went in with his noiseless step, his jaw firmly set , his eyes furtive.
All the while, four-year-old Matthew was bouncing on the couch, furtively strumming the guitar he wasn't supposed to touch and talking incessantly.
All he could see was this fake white beard and tell from certain furtive movements that Grampa was trying to sneak a peek at him without being noticed.
Hide secretly in the general affairs that making public, is not undertake in furtive hidden.
Instead it's a candid admission he once lived the furtive lifestyle of a sinister international beer villain.
It moves forward as furtively as a guerilla able to walk jungle paths blindfold.
Sallow-eyed, furtive, maybe a little brighter than the poor boy in the grocery store, backwoodsy but not an idiot. A Bob Lee Swagger eBook Boxed Set
The front gate screaked, a slow, timid, almost furtive sort of screak, and then banged suddenly shut as though it despaired of further concealment. Stubble
Usually the forlorn demesne was supervised by a mangy waiter brooding over mangy tables and by a mangier cat who kept a furtive eye on the placarded list of each day's _plat du jour_ and wondered when her turn would come for Thursday's _Sauté de lapin_. The Belovéd Vagabond
Barons and lords glanced furtively at each other from down the table, ladies and nobles picked disinterestedly at their food as if suspecting it had been poisoned.
Some quaint and furtive figures slid silently along the walls with a fearful air.
The play, written by Rattigan in 1963, takes place on an autumn evening in 1934 as Gregor Antonescu ( Frank Langella ), a finagler on the brink of economic collapse and arrest, visits the Greenwich Village apartment of his son, Basil (Adam Driver), for one last-ditch, furtive business meeting to save his own hide. A Drama of Vice and Men
I dread that she should acquire preposterous notions of love, of happiness, from the furtive perusal of vulgar novels, or from the clandestine conversation of ignorant waiting-maids: – I dread that she should acquire, even from the enchanting eloquence of Rousseau, the fatal idea, that cunning and address are the natural resources of her sex; that coquetry is necessary to attract, and dissimulation to preserve the heart of man. Letters for Literary Ladies: To Which is Added, An Essay on the Noble Science of Self-Justification
The two exchanged furtive glances in slight panic at this last comment.
The narrator paused and furtively surveyed the jestress. Under the Rose
James Dean radiated a furtive, brooding, fifties masculinity that two shows - a new docudrama and a feature film - try to decode.
He gave a furtive wave - aware that he was there to beat their team not take their plaudits. The Sun
That white, furtive, creeping girl, from whose loose hair peered out a pair of haunted eyes; that drooped thing backing against the wall, feeling for it, flat against it, with open shocked mouth, astare but seeing nothing: the whole truth flared before him monstrously naked. The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay
Thanks to their dazzling diversity of color, furtive nature, and transient presence, warblers and their fellow neotropical migrants monopolize spring birding.
There is something in a furtive glance of eyes on the subway, or from the passing crowd that does not tend to permanence.
There was much furtive whispering and glancing in my direction - who is this strange lao wai, with two cameras and writing strange hieroglyphics in his little notebook?
Turns out the “po-po” had been by an hour earlier and sure enough, we were escorted into The Squeeze with much furtive secretness, into a party that was officially slamming. Mom and Dad, you in fact do not want to read this one.
Furtive peanut oil can also pop up in unexpected places, like egg rolls, bird feed and animal chow.
For the reader who doesn't share Harrison's fascination with physical extremity, though, the journey can seem less sensuous or revelatory than furtively pornographic.
The teacher was suspicious of the student's furtive behaviour during the exam.
The man, having given another quick, furtive glance round, darted to the fence along the Botanical Gardens.
His gestures, which until now had been acclamatory, turned suddenly furtive. Nor Crystal Tears
The self-absorbed men take center stage via a series of furtive crouches, runs, hops, and boxing feints.
I took a furtive look around, digested the unfamiliar surroundings, and backtracked.
Furtive glances dissect her at thighs, hips, stomach, chest and face.
The word furtive might have been invented to describe his dodgy demeanour.
Every time he halted, the better to trim some detail of the load, or puffingly to mop the greasy flow of perspiration, he furtively surveyed all the corners of the horizon and scrutinized the edges of the wood. Under Fire: the story of a squad
A semblance of normalcy returned to the retirement community as the sounds of classical music, current technopop, sports, soap operas, and the occasional furtively tuned-in erotic movie resonated contentedly from apartment vid speakers. Codgerspace
Behind me, the wreckage of industry, abandoned factories and cracking docks; and, occasionally, unspeaking people busy furtively near small fires.
Down the empty street he hurried, with many a furtive glance to assure himself that he was not being followed.
Someone else appears to be indulging in a furtive attempt to see what they can get away with.
Perhaps an howlet or a bat or some other furtive creature. Conqueror's Moon
It was gaunt and grooved, as if with much suffering, and the eyes were bright and furtive. DEATH OF AN UNKNOWN MAN
Fed up and bored, Owen cast a furtive glance around the customs hall and then sidled over to Bret for a bit of a chat.
The man walked slowly along, casting furtive glances behind him.
I could see furtive wolf shapes dodging in and out of the shadows, eyes shining.
He cast an oddly furtive glance at her.
He cast furtive glances out of the corner of his eye, looking for Kathleen but couldn't seem to spot her.
One last glimpse of this town, a final oeillade, * however furtive, on Friday. French Word-A-Day:
In one corner the waitresses, in dainty caps and aprons, had put their heads together, and were eagerly whispering to one another whilst casting furtive looks at the small group assembled in front of one of those pretty alcoves, which, as you know, line the walls all round the big tea-room at Mathis '. Lady Molly of Scotland Yard
The dam was moaning, opening, unlocking a furtive, unknown world beneath.
He cast a furtive glance to left and to right.
There was something furtive about his behaviour and I immediately felt suspicious.
Martin dispensed royal largess, inviting everybody up, farm-hands, a stableman, and the gardener's assistant from the hotel, the barkeeper, and the furtive hobo who slid in like a shadow and like a shadow hovered at the end of the bar. Chapter 17
With a furtive glance over her shoulder, she unlocked the door and entered the house.
I saw him cast a furtive glance at the woman at the table to his right.
He was one of your furtive-faced fellows, with narrow slits of eyes and an acquired habit of skellying sidewise at one out of them. A Daughter of Raasay A Tale of the '45
She eyed it furtively, then sniffed it suspiciously, but finally discovered that it bore some relation to her native "shucks," when she fell to eagerly. Birds and Poets : with Other Papers
A furtive homosexual, he pocked his fiction with scathing descriptions of effeminate men.
She knew nothing of their subterranean, furtive, twilight life, the limbo through which, with their obliterated humanity, they moved as so many unhouseled ghosts, or the aching hunger in those hands that reached, groping tentatively out of their emptiness to seek some hope or stay.
A furtive local sidled up to me holding a pad and a ballpoint.
These clues are doled out slowly, often in half-overheard conversations or in a furtive glance or gesture.
a careful ear may catch some far faint echo even yet; the fearful and furtive yelp from beneath of the masked and writhing poeticule, the shrill reverberation all around it of plagiarism and parody. A Study of Shakespeare
Clearly, there is no place in all of this for court painters to undertake ‘influential interventions’ on behalf of bewildered litigants, or for sentences to be carried out by furtive apparatchiks in some distant quarry.
After a furtive glance toward his father, Jeremy answered it.
Tansini's approach is the antithesis of Parry's, replacing measured inexorability with a sequence of flurried, furtive conversations that hurtle into the stuff of nightmare.
The source added that this did not suggest that their conversations were in any way furtive as a result. Times, Sunday Times
Some stare in open-mouthed curiosity, others dart in and out furtively under the cover of night, she said.
Others stole furtive glances at me out of the corner of their eyes. Christianity Today
Down the empty street he hurried, with many a furtive glance to assure himself that he was not being followed.
Furtively swift as any Thunder Run "crittur," he made for the willows. The Long Roll
He casts a furtive, almost embarrassed glance around the nearby area.
There was something furtive about his actions.
She cast furtive glances his way but generally stayed out of his reach. THE WOLF AND THE DOVE
A furtive local sidled up to me holding a pad and a ballpoint.
For her part, Christine noticed the partially furtive glances, and it saddened her more than she would've cared to admit.
But his gaze was not nervous or furtive but controlling, establishing a zone that she was not to enter.
He cast a furtive glance at her.
With an insincere apology, she shuffled off, furtively glancing over her shoulder to make sure no one had seen her colluding with a stranger.
Whenever someone whips out an iPhone on the subway, I kind of sidle over as if pulled by some kind of magnetic force, and steal furtive glances over their shoulder at their p ... PSFK
For the philosopher Roland Barthes, the power of furtive photography stems from its ability to disclose part of its subject's subconscious.
the soldiers were furtively crawling through the night
The teacher was suspicious of the student's furtive behaviour during the exam.
The stowing of the rubbish seemed surreptitious, even furtive, to a young and ignorant mind.
Mrs Lammle opens her nostrils and bites her under-lip; Mr Lammle takes his gingerous whiskers in his left hand, and, bringing them together, frowns furtively at his beloved, out of a thick gingerous bush. Our Mutual Friend
Along the way, you encounter various jokily furtive characters who help you track down the swag. Times, Sunday Times
Despite his trepidation, betrayed by occasional furtive glances to the right and left, Waddley was the quintessence of efficiency.
People are distracted, throwing furtive glances over their shoulders.
I could see that he took a couple of furtive glances at what I was doing, but he wasn't really watching.
He stole a furtive glance at Sweetheart.
I saw him cast a furtive glance at the woman at the table to his right.
a furtive manner
As over the wounds of hurt pride and battered citizenship do thousands of furtive conservatives ‘furiously blog’ (in Book's phrase).
I saw him cast a furtive glance at the woman at the table to his right.
As we rattled in a sort of governess-cart, called sado, up the broad, palm-lined avenue which leads from Boeleleng to Singaradja, the seat of government, three miles away, I caught fleeting glimpses of natives peering at me furtively over the mud walls which surround their kampongs, but the instant they saw that they were observed they disappeared from view. Where the Strange Trails Go Down Sulu, Borneo, Celebes, Bali, Java, Sumatra, Straits Settlements, Malay States, Siam, Cambodia, Annam, Cochin-China
For him, tenebrism fit the general category of ‘furtive painting’, a style that was intended to conceal shortcomings by means of cloaking shadows.
Here we see the furtive behavior of Tomik as a desperate need to connect, and even, given his repression, as an understandable misdirection of desire.
The chimp is also furtive about his behaviour, almost as if he knows he is being sneaky. Times, Sunday Times
But their moves were quiet and furtive, and hard to trace, and so I was forced to use subtle methods to seek the root of this vile blossom.
There is the occasional furtive movement from the militiamen bunkered down inside - watching you watching them.
Instead it's a candid admission he once lived the furtive lifestyle of a sinister international beer villain.
Sometimes I'll make furtive pilgrimages to the Carnegie Deli to dine on that whopper classic, the hot pastrami on rye.
Above stairs, more than one head _en papillate_ took a furtive peep between the curtains; and the butler of the family, in corduroys and a fur cap, was weeding turnips in the lawn before the door. Charles O'Malley — Volume 2
The ferocious snarl of the Tyrannosaurus Rex has been replaced by a furtive shameful glance.
His movements were quick and furtive, and he spoke in a whisper.
They hinted of all enamelled things that come out of the East -- of the peacock reflections of the tiles of Damascus and Cordova, of the franker polychromy of Rhodian kilns, of the subtler bloom of the dishes of Moorish Spain, of the brassier glazes of Minorca and Sicily -- all these things lay enticingly in epitome in these lustred Italian pots, as they glimmered with a furtive splendour. The Collectors
He had a little electric stove in his room at Titchfield that he had bought at the local ironmonger's and had adapted furtively to work from the lighting circuit; it overloaded the circuit, but warmed the room beautifully. In Spite of Their Declaration of Bombs
She cast a furtive glance over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of Alex's dejected and sullen expression.
Our generation's pseudo-hip-hop air jabbing and furtive wiggles just didn't hack it.
And they do not want male waiters casting furtive looks and breathing down their necks.
To try to make your son stop wearing women's clothes would only make the behaviour more furtive, stressed and unhappy. Times, Sunday Times
Never you mind the perceived furtive abscondence of Miette these days. The Young Man Who Discovered the Secret of Life | Miette's Bedtime Story Podcast
Furtive and nimble tipplers and topers nightly dodged through alleys and back yards under the noses of the flashlamp-carrying guards.

How To Use Furtive In A Sentence

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