covert

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. adj. Not openly practiced, avowed, engaged in, accumulated, or shown: covert military operations; covert funding for the rebels. See Synonyms at secret.
2. adj. Covered or covered over; sheltered.
3. adj. Law Being married and therefore protected by one's husband.
4. n. A covering or cover.
5. n. A covered place or shelter; hiding place.
6. n. Thick underbrush or woodland affording cover for game.
7. n. Zoology One of the small feathers covering the bases of the longer feathers of a bird's wings or tail.
8. n. A flock of coots. See Synonyms at flock¹.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. Covered; hidden; private; secret; concealed; disguised.
2. Sheltered; not open or exposed: as, a covert place.
3. In law, under cover, authority, or protection: said of a married woman. See feme covert, under feme. Synonyms Latent, Occult, etc. See secret.
4. n. A protection; a shelter; a defense; something that covers and shelters.
5. n. Something that conceals or hides; a screen; a disguise; a pretext; an excuse.
6. n. A thicket; a shady place or a hiding-place; a cover for game.
7. n. Same as coverture, 3.
8. n. In fowling, a company; a flock.
9. n. plural In ornithology, feathers covering the bases, or more, of the large feathers of the wing or tail; the tectrices. They are divided into superior and inferior, or upper and lower, coverts. The upper wing-coverts are divided into primary, which overlie the bases of the primaries, and secondary, which overlie the bases of the secondaries. The last-named set are subdivided into the greater coverts, a single row projecting furthest upon the secondaries; the median coverts, a single row coming next in order; and the lesser or least coverts, including all the remainder, without distinction of rows. The secondary coverts are also antebrachial or cubital, being situated upon the forearm; the primary coverts are manual, situated upon the manus. The under wing-coverts and the upper and under tail-coverts are not subdivided. Tail-coverts of either set sometimes project far beyond the tail-feathers, forming, for instance, the gorgeous train of the peacock. The extent to which the upper wing-coverts overlie the secondaries is available as a character in classification; it is least in the Passeres, the highest birds. See tectrices.
10. To cover.

Wiktionary

1. adj. Hidden, covered over; overgrown, sheltered.
2. adj. figuratively Secret, surreptitious, concealed.
3. n. Area of thick undergrowth where animals hide.
4. n. A feather that covers others

GNU Webster's 1913

1. adj. Covered over; private; hid; secret; disguised.
2. adj. Sheltered; not open or exposed; retired; protected.
3. adj. (Law) Under cover, authority or protection.
4. n. A place that covers and protects; a shelter; a defense.
5. n. (Zoöl.) One of the special feathers covering the bases of the quills of the wings and tail of a bird. See Illust. of Bird.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a flock of coots
2. n. a covering that serves to conceal or shelter something
3. adj. (of a wife) being under the protection of her husband
4. adj. secret or hidden; not openly practiced or engaged in or shown or avowed