The letter didn't offer up the jewels, only shadowy suggestions about their disappearance, claiming that [heiress, Carolyn] Skelly, in a surreptitious trading of parcels with "a man in an ankle-length tweed overcoat," had left a bag full of jewelry on the floor at J.F.K. Mark Seal, Vanity Fair, December 2001In the early evening as we gathered in the lobby beneath mounted elk heads and bear skins, the lights of the chandelier flickered mysteriously. But the teacher and I both spied the surreptitious action of the desk clerk, whose sheepish smile acknowledged that one brief hotel mystery had been solved. Other signs of pranking there included a "ghost" photo (displayed in a lobby album) that the clerk confided to me was staged, and some pennies, placed on the back of a men's room toilet, that from time to time would secretly become rearranged to form messages—like the word "why?" that I encountered. Joe Nickell, Skeptical Inquirer, September/October 2000The next week offered [FBI agent] Wiser the opportunity he had been waiting for. Ames was leaving the country, going to Ankara for a weeklong international conference on drugs. Wiser went to Bryant for permission to run a … surreptitious search of Ames' garbage. But the chief was dead set against it. Tim Weiner et al., Rolling Stone, 29 June 1995 She had a surreptitious relationship with her employee. a private investigator adept at taking surreptitious pictures of adulterous couples
Recent Examples on the WebParents fret over how to keep their kids safe from the internet’s myriad dangers, from bullies to predators to surreptitious surveillance.WIRED, 3 Sep. 2022 Writer Plum Sykes, another neighbor, drove past and took a surreptitious picture for Brooks and Halard back in the States. Hamish Bowles, Vogue, 30 Aug. 2022 Tripp doesn’t see herself as a villain, particularly in the early moments of her surreptitious recordings of the private phone calls between herself and Lewinsky. Tyler Coates, The Hollywood Reporter, 21 Aug. 2022 The far heavier-than-expected losses of personnel and equipment quickly prompted the military leadership to seek the help of Wagner mercenaries hardened by years of surreptitious fighting in Donbas and Syria and in other far-flung locations. Mary Ilyushina, Washington Post, 18 Aug. 2022 About 15 videos of surreptitious recordings were found in Kocak's phone, according to the documents. Angela Cordoba Perez, The Arizona Republic, 8 Aug. 2022 Cameras and cellphones are strictly prohibited inside, although one guy smuggled in some sort of surreptitious body cam a couple years ago and posted a rare peak inside on YouTube. Mark Zeigler, San Diego Union-Tribune, 9 Apr. 2022 Among them is one verity that sets the company’s surreptitious nature at the center of its culture. John Archibald | Jarchibald@al.com, al, 3 Aug. 2022 Still, the varied narrative devices and surreptitious construction to preserve the secret for as long as possible deliver an engaging film that will be best enjoyed if one restrains from searching the plot twist online before watching. Carlos Aguilar, Los Angeles Times, 27 July 2022 See More
Word History
Etymology
Middle English, from Latin surrepticius, from surreptus, past participle of surripere to snatch secretly, from sub- + rapere to seize — more at rapid