Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Characterized by stealth; surreptitious.
- adj. Expressive of hidden motives or purposes; shifty. See Synonyms at secret.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Stolen; obtained by theft.
- Stealthy; thief-like.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Stolen; obtained or characterized by stealth; sly; secret; stealthy.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. marked by quiet and caution and secrecy; taking pains to avoid being observed
- adj. secret and sly or sordid
Etymologies
- From French furtif ("stealthy"), From Latin fūrtīvus ("stolen"), from fūrtum ("theft"), from fūr ("thief"). (Wiktionary)
- French furtif, from Old French, from Latin fūrtīvus, from fūrtum, theft, from fūr, thief; see bher-1 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“She must have heard my steps on the wood stairs, because by the time I walked through the door, she was sitting on the floor near the bed, looking at me with an expression of furtive innocence.”
“Every now and then, a sister slid grey and furtive from the side gate to hand over coins to buy not acarajé but a pink-and-white striped bag bulging with peeled chunks of sugar cane.”
“Re-search Department at the Foreign Office, and engaged in furtive adulteries.”
“While the relationship was private, it can hardly be called furtive or clandestine.”
“He bristled now, recalling their furtive trysts in the woods.”
“In the light of after events, well did Slavin and Yorke recall the furtive appealing glance the hobo threw at Gully; well did they also remember certain of Kilbride's words: "There'll be quite a lot of things crop up in our minds that we'll be wondering we never thought of before.”
The Luck of the Mounted A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police
“I may say that I was quite startled by his manner which I can only describe as furtive and uneasy.”
“If we see this kind of furtive activity in our midst, we are going to be the one pulling guns out of holsters.”
“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.”
The Wall Street Journal: Our 'Pragmatic,' 'Ebullient' Year of 'Austerity'
“Bush tortured animals when he was a child, and now he tortures human beings with the same kind of furtive, sniggering, naughty glee.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘furtive’.
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Test Prep or Just for fun
Building a list for standardized test prep or just for learning some new words! Please add any words that you feel are important for the SAT/GRE/GMAT etc...
throng, morass, parley, facile, kismet, strife, jetsam, carrion, annex, harbinger, vestige, surreptitious and 575 more...
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1100
abound, technology, branch of knowled..., prognosticate, automaton, matron, an older married ..., realm, special field of ..., kingdom, annals, historical records and 981 more...
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GRE 2014
abate, abdicate, abase, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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3/4 year Vocab List
voracious, indiscriminate, eminent, steeped, replete, awe, buffoon, abound, technology, prognosticate, automaton, matron and 96 more...
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7thGradeWords
horde, doggedly, retina, frail, jovial, insidious, injudicious, brazen, tentative, hortle, adaver, benign and 91 more...
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3/4 year Vocab List
voracious, indiscriminate, eminent, steeped, replete, awe, buffoon, abound, technology, prognosticate, automaton, matron and 96 more...
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From reading
Collected from reading
venerate, reprobate, reticent, adoration, ethereal, ephemeral, equivocal, contumacious, heinous, solicitous, agnostic, aberration and 335 more...
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(1st_wk_150)-Dec_5_2012
replete, steeped, eminent, indiscriminate, voracious, automaton, prognosticate, technology, abound, matron, tinge, compound and 297 more...
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Notable
undulate, priaprism, alphanumeric, conjure, love, roughshod, helpless, palatial, chortle, swimmingly, mustachioed, symbiotic and 21 more...
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man gre
abase, abeyance, abreast, abscission, abscond, abyss, accede, accretion, acerbic, acidulous, acumen, adulterate and 483 more...
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Adjectives
anodyne, incessant, unbroken, malcontent, furtive, evocative, lithe, fugacious, aleatory, indelible, ephemeral, paltry
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GRE
intrepid, accost, reticent, furtive, pretext, gesticulate, cajole, nuance, lackluster, jostle, incipient, inadvertent and 4 more...
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GRE 1100
drudgery, implore, hapless, nuance, wrest, incipient, inadvertent, tremulous, bristle, euphemism, disdain, pugnacious and 346 more...
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No, thank you
Words with negative connotations
fetid, furtive, guile, chicanery, prevaricate, prodigal, meretricious, myopic, noisome, nominal, perfidious, perfunctory and 2 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1824 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for furtive.

Arthurpod "In the twilight, he sensed his peril sneaking furtively closer to him, though he did not know what it was."
Lord Foul's Bane Jul 29, 2012
Telofy Amazed to hear it in Emilie Autumn’s Gothic Lolita. Dec 18, 2009