How To Use Surreptitious In A Sentence

A couple of phone calls, arranged by a deep-sea diver I came to know while working on a story on the Miskito Coast of Nicaragua, led me to an alternately boastful and paranoidly surreptitious man named Steve. The Lampshade
They acted like some surreptitious athletics officials who could not wait to be the first to give the media a scoop and doubtless court future favour as a reward.
At its core, “macroeconomic management” is invariably an exercise in surreptitious theft and fraud. Matthew Yglesias » Justice and Stabilization
The two leading cases on so-called surreptitious entry, or what have come to be known as “sneak and peek” searches, came to very similar conclusions…. Using the Drug "War" to Expand Government Power
Newsweek's editor was targeted this spring by an internet campaign that used surreptitiously recorded footage showing him, as well as opposition politicians, in compromising situations. Publisher Shuts Russian Weekly

If the test fails , the ticket - user has obtained ( perhaps surreptitiously ) another person's ticket.
An optimistic theory of evolutionary progress was surreptitiously beginning to replace the pessimistic doctrine of universal decay.
This area requires maintenance costing over $200 million a day and the surreptitious cost of the car culture totals nearly $500 billion a year in the U.S. alone, much of that going to the sustentation of a military presence in the Persian Gulf. Driving Mister Barack
Or this was all surreptitious, which isn't true, due to state contracts. Renovation And Ed McMahon's Teeth
The 1827 restrikes are well known because of the rarity of issues for the year, and were most likely surreptitiously made in the late 1850s, some with rusted dies and some overstruck on older quarters (a piece struck on an 1806 quarter is known). Capped Bust Quarter, Large Size, 1815-1828 : Coin Guide
Normalcy, in this version, was conceived as full integration - without any of the surreptitious derogations and defaults of the past - into a liberalised European economy.
So Thomas decided to exact revenge by surreptitiously placing a vicious computer virus on Scott's machine which destroyed his hard drive.
The light was so-so, and I took the photos surreptitiously and quickly, as the proprietors of many stores do not like people taking photographs inside.
Adware maker 180 solutions has sued seven former distributors for using networks of compromised computers to surreptitiously install its software on users' PCs.
His boyfriend at the time felt me up surreptitiously in the back of the car while Derek chattered excitedly to us from the front. G. Roger Denson: MoMA and AA Bronson Present "Queer Cinema: Today and Yesterday"
My dad probably viewed it as a way of surreptitiously dosing us with cricket rules, and regrets it to this day.
Blinds and windows can be surreptitiously opened.
In the final analysis, the ideology of radical diversity surreptitiously promotes a political program of the same kind.
On August 7, 1974, French funambulist Petit, then 24, performed an astonishing high-wire act on a cable that he and his accomplices had surreptitiously rigged between the north and south towers of the World Trade Center.
She seemed to be listening to what I was saying, but I couldn't help noticing her surreptitious glances at the clock.
Surreptitiously, he sniffed at it as he raised it to his lips, then took a small sip.
I can see it now, future intervals at English National Opera being characterised by hordes of opera-loving smokers surreptitiously tippling their Tennants Super as they overspill into the periphery of Trafalgar Square.
Very often staff feel that their colleagues have been silently and invisibly spirited out of the company in a surreptitious and clandestine manner.
If romantic interest is reciprocated, young men and young women will visit surreptitiously at night under the cover of darkness.
This, for anyone not in the know, is the surreptitious act of slapping size 10 labels on clothes that are really a 12.
There are also modifications for people doing the workout surreptitiously at their desks.
She sneaked a surreptitious glance at her watch.
She carried out a surreptitious search of his belongings.
As she fingered through them, searching for the one that would unlock the main door, the keys jangled, causing Rena to surreptitiously look around.
As an investigative hack, Parlabane was a ninth-dan blackbelt in the art of earwigging, but he had soon learned there was little need to be surreptitious about it in a place where nobody would ever describe discretion as the better part of valour. Boiling a Frog
A single provision of the bill has been the subject of charges and imputations that the silver dollar was, in a fraudulent and surreptitious way, "demonetized" by this act. Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet An Autobiography.
I was relying on peripheral vision for this, while surreptitiously focusing at chest height. THE MANANA MAN
It is strangely unclassifiable television - a caustically comic, surreptitiously sudsy thriller that has alienated a whole tranche of strait-laced Americans and so delighted many more.
Surreptitiously I pointed to my purse and raised my eyebrows at her.
A surreptitious bump as Nan took her seat on Mem'sab's left hand proved that it was quite light and easy to move; it would be possible to lift it with one hand with no difficulty at all. Werehunter
The result was that we all kept making surreptitious trips to the staff room to refill our plastic beakers.
Surreptitious observation had been a habit of his since boyhood, practiced first on wildlife and then on women.
Sadly, unscrupulous ski resorts might misuse the new polymer, surreptitiously dusting it on the slopes of their rivals.
A no-fly zone is reported to have been enforced so that paparazzi cannot take surreptitious snaps from helicopters.
The most likely route of attack would be surreptitiously planting a bomb or bombs, not attacking in recognizable groups that could be deterred or counter-attacked by aerial bombing or firing guns or missiles from helicopters. William Hartung: Rethinking the Saudi Arms Deal
Freegans in New York and Seattle claim to have subsisted for years by dining out surreptitiously at their neighbourhood dumpsters, undermining meal by meal the evil corporations' irresponsible pursuit of profit.
Martin turned to Amanda; Lady Osbaldestone released her with a surreptitious push. ON A WILD NIGHT
Zara was casually fanning herself with her picture, but when she thought no one was watching stole long, slow, surreptitious looks at it.
Compared with most large projects, this is a bagatelle, but the surreptitiously radical design that makes such poetic sense of the pixel is a gutsy move.
I once "heared" Sedalia Lane telling some of her experiences, and she said she "surreptitiously stole along. Letters of a Woman Homesteader
In its portrayal, former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, R-TX, is wearing a suit so much nattier than his normal attire I thought a group of conservative Republicans had surreptitiously lobbied Bravo to revive “Queer Eye.” A Troubling Time
In his death, they are surreptitiously besmirching his reputation to gain political protection.
They're all meeting in the cafeteria to plot against Veronica, and the way you shot it, you get right away that it's surreptitious.
Terrorist will seek and potentially gain surreptitious entry into the United States to conduct mass casualty attacks against Americans on US soil. STATE DEFENSE FORCES
They surreptitiously give aid to the family.
Monsieur flattered himself that he might by means of laughter squeeze or express the tears required from the well-known meibomian glands, the caruncula, &c., and might thus piratically provide himself with surreptitious rain; [18] but in that case, he must remind him that he would no more win the day with any such secretions than he could carry to account a course of sneezes or wilfully blowing his nose; a channel into which it was well known that very many tears, far more than were now wanted, flowed out of the eyes through the nasal duct; more indeed by a good deal than were ever known to flow downwards to the bottom of most pews at a funeral sermon. The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg
It was there that I was able to surreptitiously cross-examine these men.
The Honor often protected independent merchants from privateers and raiders surreptitiously sponsored by the Trade Federation.
[1] Sir William Petty's Political arithmetick which was written in 1676, surreptitiously published in 1683, under the title of England's guide to industry [anon], and issued with the author's name in 1690, seven years after his death. Currency and Banking in the Province of the Massachusetts-Bay [excerpts]
He liked to speak elliptically, but he made it clear that he had on his staff at least one black-bag man that is, a surreptitious entry specialist although he never admitted having had him employ those talents. Will
The word surreptitious has appeared in 42 New York Times articles in the past year, including on May 29 in "French Broadcasters Told to Avoid Naming Social Media Sites," by Eric Pfanner: NYT > Home Page
The back avoids eye contact and confrontation, but it may invite the surreptitious gaze.
If they exchanged surreptitious winks over the appearance of Agatha, they are to be excused, for that lady's demeanor was one of frigid haughtiness, which is never quite impressive to those who live close to nature. 'Firebrand' Trevison
Raising his hand to the knocker, Jon surreptitiously crossed his frozen fingers. MIDNIGHT IS A LONELY PLACE
They gave as their reasons for this aloofness the facts that delegates from the Central powers, with whom the United States was still at war, were in attendance; that the meeting was held "for the purpose of arranging socialist procedure of an international character"; and that the convention was irregularly called, for it had been announced as an interallied conference but had been surreptitiously converted into an international pacifist gathering, conniving with German and Austrian socialists. The Armies of Labor A chronicle of the organized wage-earners
In addition, ransom payments should not be filmed and media vehicles should not surreptitiously tail police cars to avoid blowing their cover, he added.
It is strangely unclassifiable television - a caustically comic, surreptitiously sudsy thriller that has alienated a whole tranche of strait-laced Americans and so delighted many more.
Many programs that surreptitiously access the internet go undetected by users.
Rory tried to sneak a surreptitious glance at Adam's wristwatch.
The uproarious bun throwing and surreptitious chatting up of 18th century public spaces gave way to the hushed cathedral of the 19th century concert hall.
In the end, after many days of surreptitious feasting in the yu trees, he decided that he would eat neither cultured meats nor animals. THE BROKEN GOD
He made a surreptitious entrance to the club through the little door in the brick wall.
During OPEVAL, Carlson had bought a microcassette tape recorder and surreptitiously taped meetings on maintenance data. The Dream Machine
Wyatt Earp and the patriarch of the Clantons were forever patching together surreptitious deals to keep their hot-tempered relatives in line. New Tales of the Old West
he was watching her surreptitiously as she waited in the hotel lobby
The practice becomes illegal when done surreptitiously to cheat the consumer or defraud the taxman.
I surreptitiously sniffed at my own armpits and wrinkled my nose a little.
When he called a surreptitious meeting to try to get Emmerson ANC Daily News Briefing
She has been reflecting on the fact that it is ten years since she left school, and surreptitious elements of old school uniform have crept into her recent work.
I gave them a surreptitious wink and a salute and then turned back to the menu, a self - satisfied smirk on my face.
The CD-ROM didn't contain a virus per se, because a virus circulates mainly across computer networks, entering a computer surreptitiously the way a disease organism enters a living host (hence the term virus). The Bear and the Dragon
It's called "gazumping" in England, the process by which someone selling a piece of property accepts an offer from one buyer, maybe even going so far as to shake hands on it, then quickly — and often surreptitiously — accepts another, higher, offer from a second buyer, leaving the first buyer with his pockets agape and his heart broken. Philocrites: One thing you don't learn in seminary.
a surreptitious glance at his watch
For this, we surreptitiously captured live on audio two young men who we will call Zek and Zak, dressed in baggy clothes with baseball caps turned backwards, both feeling a little zonked out sitting around at a Mall. How To Find Yourself (or a reasonable facsimile)
Once we reached the library, we three signed in, and Kelsey surreptitiously drifted away, fetching the large tome and bringing it to the room where we were doing our shift.
Rory tried to sneak a surreptitious glance at Adam's wristwatch.
An optimistic theory of evolutionary progress was surreptitiously beginning to replace the pessimistic doctrine of universal decay.
An optimistic theory of evolutionary progress was surreptitiously beginning to replace the pessimistic doctrine of universal decay.
Being at once an extreme skeptic and an extreme believer generated in Dostoevsky a chronically antinomic state of mind which he surreptitiously relished, I believe, even as he tried to conceal it from his readers and especially from his patrons, including the renowned Pobedonstsev who belonged to aristocratic and official circles. A Special Supplement: The Other Dostoevsky
In the days of reel-to-reel tape recorders, it was a technological feat in itself to be surreptitious.
Breaking from TheGreenGrok formula of sharp, cutting-edge pieces on the environment, let's discuss words -- let us surreptitiously slip into the world of the etymologist for a few minutes. Bill Chameides: On Words: 'Global Warming' Meets Astrology
She seemed to be listening to what I was saying, but I couldn't help noticing her surreptitious glances at the clock.
They went on about benefits, making ends meet and why New Labour is so out of touch with the plight of those on the dole as I nodded surreptitiously into my pint, earwigging all the while.
On the recording, however, I keep hearing the surreptitious scratch of a lighter.
Monsieur flattered himself that he might by means of laughter squeeze or express the tears required from the well-known meibomian glands, the caruncula, &c., and might thus piratically provide himself with surreptitious rain; [18] but in that case, he must remind him that he would no more win the day with any such secretions than he could carry to account a course of sneezes or wilfully blowing his nose; a channel into which it was well known that very many tears, far more than were now wanted, flowed out of the eyes through the nasal duct; more indeed by a good deal than were ever known to flow downwards to the bottom of most pews at a funeral sermon. The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg
Some court records brought out the fact that Labash had tape recorded some interviewees without telling them, sometimes from his home in Maryland, where surreptitious taping is a felony. Think Progress » Tucker Carlson’s new website kicks off with jokes about rape, being gay.
We don't need this surreptitious attempt at re-direction of our considerable traffic.
Satan retreated, hid himself, surreptitiously arose again, awaited his chance, taking advantage of unguarded and weak moments, and in one word demeaned himself as a very live and sagacious Satan. The Bride of Dreams
As long as companies like Google and Facebook are transparent and don't violate their own privacy policies, there's nothing surreptitious or evil about this -- it's the way social adverting works. Larry Magid: Yet Another Google Attempt at Social Networking
Waiting for the train, she glances surreptitiously through the commuters at the lovely young thing walking down the platform unawares.
Honest Roger, the red-haired coachman, would have looked like a clown in a pantomime, in front of a fashionable equipage; and Simon the footboy, who slouched at my back, would have been mistaken for an idle urchin surreptitiously enjoying a ride. The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 14, No. 400, November 21, 1829
He was quite sure it would be restored that afternoon, he said, with quiet emphasis and a surreptitious glance at his watch.
However, every time Rudolph turned his back, the band (in their usual mischievous way) would surreptitiously displace a tom-tom or a speaker, causing Roddy to become increasingly agitated.
He made a surreptitious entrance to the club through the little door in the brick wall.
Thanks to e-mail, the modern workplace is a hive of covert communication and surreptitious sociability.
So the commercials can say the candidate for insurance commissioner is fighting the very insurance industry that is surreptitiously funding the advertisements. Jamie Court: President Should Stop BP Administrator Feinberg From Helping The Chamber Of Commerce
When a communist Oswald snuffed out JFK, the anti-anti-communists in the Democratic Party completed their takeover of the party; snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in Vietnam; nominated and elected a bemoaner of our "inordinate fear of communism"; appeased communists in Nicaragua; and, publicly and surreptitiously aided and abetted the Soviet-desired nuclear freeze and opposition to intermediate missiles in Europe. Race42008.com
It's a shield designed to protect contactless smart cards from surreptitious access.
Thornton," Steinmeyer explains, "had sent the message to himself, from Cripple Creek to Colorado Springs," where he surreptitiously lopped off the telltale portion before handing it over to the policeman. Jim Steinmeyer's "The Last Greatest Magician in the World"
And so she was committed -- the more helplessly for her dense misintelligence of both sides of the question -- to the policy of conciliating the opposing influences which had so uncomfortably chosen to fight out their case on the field of her poor little existence: theoretically siding with her husband, but surreptitiously, as he well knew, giving aid and comfort to the enemy, who were really defending her own cause. The Fruit of the Tree
The work's title, Brank & Heckle, refers to a brank, a 16th-century iron muzzle used to silence women offenders, and hecklers, first thought to refer to 19th-century Dundee mill workers who, while heckling combing out flax would, like the artist, give surreptitious voice to dissent. This week's new exhibitions
When somebody surreptitiously opened the canal - and local police refused to make arrests - federal marshals were called in.
Surreptitious e-mailers sending spam anonymously will likely ignore the requirement.
Today during afternoon break I went for a surreptitious puff with two co-workers.
He made a surreptitious entrance to the club through the little door in the brick wall.
She surreptitiously sneaks a bite of food.
Third, hypoxia can be induced surreptitiously, obviating behavioral responses at the time where critical measurements are made.
On the wharves was the smell of tarred seams and cordage, -- sweltering in the sun; in the counting-rooms the clerks could barely keep the drops of moisture from their faces from falling down to blot their toilsome lines of figures on the faultless pages of the ledgers; on the Common, common men surreptitiously stretched themselves in shady corners on the grass, regardless of the police, until they should be found and ordered off; little babies in second-rate boarding-houses, where their fathers and mothers had to stay for cheapness the summer through wailed the helpless, pitiful cry of a slowly murdered infancy; and out on the blazing thoroughfares where business had to be busy, strong men were dropping down, and reporters were hovering about upon the skirts of little crowds, gathering their items; making The Other Girls
This data is then surreptitiously transmitted to crooks, allowing their young accomplices to later empty bank accounts.
This, for anyone not in the know, is the surreptitious act of slapping size 10 labels on clothes that are really a 12.
He speaks loudly, and endearingly frankly, and occasionally steals a surreptitious glance over his shoulder to make sure the room is indeed empty.
Ally surreptitiously guzzles water at every chance to avoid the dreaded dry mouth kiss.
An electrician surreptitiously hooks up our hero to the main power supply.
It is also surreptitious and insidious discrimination.
Astute stratagems and surreptitious methods had been planned and executed only to fail.
'My dear young lady, it is well known that your christening was the work of your aunt, who did it unknown to your parents when she had you in her power, out of pure obstinacy to a church with which she was not in sympathy, taking you surreptitiously, and indefensibly, to the font of the Establishment; so that the rite meant and could mean nothing at all .... A Laodicean : a Story of To-day
In fact, she swears that she saw the blow-up bra being surreptitiously inflated after a recent dive in a boat full of blokes.
The privacy conscious should be able to shield their documents from surreptitious sniffers by covering passports in a metal sheath.
Surreptitiously wiping my eyes and swallowing the sobs in my throat, I held out the baby to its mother and began to say a halting "adieu" to all of them. Over Paradise Ridge A Romance
After all, if there is no chocolate dessert on hand, it just might lead to surreptitious stealing of the children's chocolate eggs.
She surreptitiously wiped the tears from her cheeks before she gave up and allowed herself to be viewed.
While they spoke, he surreptitiously dropped it into the Aare River. Euclid’s Window
Attempts were made to surreptitiously dispose of the corpse, and some evidence was destroyed - but the body was eventually autopsied, and the death labelled a homicide.
One might, at a stretch, imagine that one of the characters has surreptitiously pocketed it, or that someone has snuck in and across the large empty space of the platform to steal it, staying out of shot at all times; neither of these fancies is remotely plausible however. Notes on Strange Fiction: The Pataphysical Quirk
Crimeware can surreptitiously install keystroke loggers to collect sensitive data login and password information for online bank accounts, and report them back to the thief.
Surreptitious observation had been a habit of his since boyhood, practiced first on wildlife and then on women.
He had a long lens and he was surreptitiously looking round the corner into the cemetery and taking sneaky shots.
A keylogger is a form of malware program that installs itself surreptitiously, records keystrokes made on the infected computer and sends this data to hackers.
British dystopian Watkins prophesizes in his film that protestors and lefties are arrested, tried, and surreptitiously executed in the desert.
A burning ember becomes a surreptitious reference to a tense nation teetering on collapse.
By the time our desserts arrive, people are glancing surreptitiously at their watches.
These new brand ambassadors are almost the perfect instruments for surreptitiously sparking and cultivating a groundswell of desire within desired target markets. P2pnet World Headlines – May 26, 2009
The back avoids eye contact and confrontation, but it may invite the surreptitious gaze.
He also, however, surreptitiously programs them to respond to a command word, which will be later used in post-hypnotic suggestion to turn C.W. into unwitting jewel thieves.
Under these conditions, inspired gas concentrations can be manipulated to effect surreptitiously desired changes in alveolar gas tensions.
I would have thought the ability to become invisible could only underline the traditional strategy of surreptitiously helping yourself to extra Monopoly money.
surreptitious mobilization of troops
The 15 youngsters all pledged not to indulge in a surreptitious snack when they went home to bed after a video evening at the church, without the pop corn.
My father propagated native plants in 1946 and 47, puffing seeds in the oven and pouring boiling water over them, then he'd surreptitiously go back and plant these plants as a means of reafforesting the hillside.
Under British and American law this surreptitious sale is illegal.
The stowing of the rubbish seemed surreptitious, even furtive, to a young and ignorant mind.
Meanwhile, a surreptitious measure of whisky is pulled from his pocket for a crafty nip.
I don't mind you smoking occasionally -- there's no need to be so surreptitious about it!
He hurried surreptitiously through the most distant outskirts of the town, and did not stop till they had reached a little martyry some six miles beyond it. Gathering Clouds: A Tale of the Days of St. Chrysostom
In a world such as this, it would be all so evident, the extent to which markets have been surreptitiously rigged already.
He made a surreptitious entrance to the club through the little door in the brick wall.
Still, she didn't feel as bonhomous as she knew she ought at an anniversary party, and as the guests of honour took an overlarge knife in their clasped hands and began to assail a cake whose icing was decorated with roses, ivy, twined hearts and the words Happy Twenty-fifth, Malcolm and Frances, Barbara surreptitiously stole glances round the crowd to see if anyone besides herself was giving more attention to his wristwatch than to the waning moments of the celebration. A Traitor to Memory
Martin turned to Amanda; Lady Osbaldestone released her with a surreptitious push. ON A WILD NIGHT
Thanks to e-mail, the modern workplace is a hive of covert communication and surreptitious sociability.
Is that why all those male journalists in the audience were gulping and surreptitiously recrossing their legs?
He made a surreptitious entrance to the club through the little door in the brick wall.
Surreptitious observation had been a habit of his since boyhood, practiced first on wildlife and then on women.
The term “subreption” refers to a fallacy that specifically involves the surreptitious substitution of different kinds of terms and concepts. Kant's Critique of Metaphysics
Most of us, he claims, do it surreptitiously at our desks, although some retire to their cars or, if they're really desperate for a bit of shut-eye, the toilet cubicle.
‘This service is very much loved by those engrossed in clandestine relationships of a carnal nature for passing surreptitious billets-doux,’ he said.
There appears to be an increasing amount of surveillance, much of it surreptitious.
Finally, insofar as President Bush has exercised his powers to engage in surreptitious electronic surveillance without court-issued warrants in violation of the FISA, on the basis of an implausibly broad construction of his inherent Article II powers and a reading of the AUMF that was rightly repudiated in a slightly different context by the Supreme Court's recent Hamdan decision, the "fix" reportedly negotiated between The White House and Senator Arlen Specter, in which the legality of the NSA program of warrantless surveillance would be submitted for adjudication on the basis of a one-sided presentation to the FISA court by the Executive Branch -- which alone would be authorized to control the evidence to be considered, the forum for its consideration, whether the proceedings would be public or secret, and whether the result would be published or kept under wraps, and which alone would be authorized to appeal an adverse ruling to an Article III court including the Supreme Court -- is as transparently phony and futile as is the suggestion of a congressionally enacted vehicle to confer standing on someone to obtain a judicial ruling on the legality of this President's signing statements. Balkinization
Mugs of tea surreptitiously laced with whiskey were handed around while biscuits, cakes and bracks, compliments of O'Hara's of Foxford, were as plentiful as confetti at a wedding.
Ah Chen, sitting in the corner, was smiling surreptitiously behind her hand.
Learn more about the word "surreptitious" and see usage examples across a range of subjects on the Vocabulary.com dictionary. NYT > Home Page

How To Use Surreptitious In A Sentence

Report a problem

Please indicate a type of error

Additional information (optional):