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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

furtive.

Of a thing: done with evasive or guilty secrecy.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈfɜːtɪv/Received-Pronunciation/ˈfɝtɪv/General-American[-ɾɪv]General-American[ˈfɜːɾɪv]Australia
  1. Of a thing: done with evasive or guilty secrecy.

  2. Of a thing: that has been acquired by theft; stolen; also (generally) taken stealthily.

  3. Of a person or an animal: sly, stealthy.

  4. Of a person, etc.: inclined to steal; pilfering, thieving.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English *furtyve (implied in furtyvely (adverb)), from Middle French furtif, furtive (“furtive, stealthy”) (modern French furtif), from Latin fūrtīvus (“clandestine, furtive, secret; concealed, hidden; stolen”), from fūrtum (“theft; robbery”) (from fūr (“thief”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰer- (“to bear, carry”)) + -īvus (suffix forming adjectives).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.