How to Use surreptitious in a Sentence

surreptitious

adjective
  • She had a surreptitious relationship with her employee.
  • But most of the time there was no surreptitious upper hand to be gained.
    — Sophie Madeline Dess, The New Republic, 24 June 2020
  • Sure enough, with a surreptitious push of a button, a black-and-white cow had jumped out on the rail.
    — Dallas News, 22 Dec. 2022
  • Not just the obvious ones like breads and pastas, but the surreptitious ones, too.
    — Alison Myers, The New Yorker, 13 Oct. 2023
  • Even more troubling, what could hackers find out about you with full, surreptitious access to your phone?
    — Eric Limer, Popular Mechanics, 16 Dec. 2016
  • The office has no public waiting room, so there’s no risk of the surreptitious camera-phone shot.
    — Kenzie Bryant, vanityfair.com, 2 Aug. 2017
  • At any rate, there were other, more surreptitious ways to get under a quarterback's skin.
    — Creg Stephenson, AL.com, 25 May 2017
  • At this point in time, experts said there's little reason to fear surreptitious tracking — at least not from a microchip.
    — Camille Caldera, USA TODAY, 2 Aug. 2020
  • Brian found someone who lived about 80 miles away and met the person late at night for a surreptitious handover.
    — John Kelly, Washington Post, 8 Apr. 2023
  • Not one to take no for an answer, Burbank tried some surreptitious application of ketchup on his hot dog.
    — CBS News, 1 July 2018
  • The hardest thing to replicate, for any novice, will be the surreptitious ease with which, in the latest film, Soderbergh shifts gear.
    — Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 4 Dec. 2020
  • Impress him with my discretion, my knowledge of the surreptitious.
    — Katherine Dunn, The New Yorker, 4 May 2020
  • But Prayer is not your humdrum, surreptitious post–Cowboy Carter cash-out.
    — Craig Jenkins, Vulture, 2 Dec. 2025
  • Apple has long built in protections against surreptitious use of AirTags.
    — Thomas Brewster, Forbes, 23 Mar. 2023
  • None was required for that surreptitious exchange– two dollars for a warm burrito neatly wrapped.
    — Krista Kafer, Denver Post, 5 Feb. 2026
  • Haeckel’s Italian trip was part of a surreptitious alternate life plan.
    — Literary Hub, 28 Oct. 2025
  • Among them is one verity that sets the company’s surreptitious nature at the center of its culture.
    — John Archibald | [email protected], al, 3 Aug. 2022
  • Kemp needled Cagle over the surreptitious recording that surfaced last month.
    — Chris Stirewalt, Fox News, 16 July 2018
  • For the defense, the government’s surreptitious recordings were hard to overcome.
    — Christopher Goffard, Los Angeles Times, 24 July 2024
  • Historian Michael Beschloss notes that this was supposed to be the end of surreptitious recording.
    — Philip Bump, Washington Post, 12 May 2017
  • Misty was a friendless creep, hence her surreptitious dismantling of the plane’s black box to prolong her adventure with the popular girls and her beloved coach.
    — Judy Berman, TIME, 2 Oct. 2024
  • The upside of the bar's surreptitious locale is sometimes not having to share it with a soul; the downside is the potential lack of a pool partner, so bring your own.
    — Condé Nast, Condé Nast Traveler, 30 Apr. 2026
  • In time, perhaps, the surreptitious payments Adidas is alleged to have arranged may be allowed in broad daylight.
    — Tim Sullivan, The Courier-Journal, 11 May 2018
  • If a voter does not agree to an affidavit, volunteers would be able to use the surreptitious recordings of residents to generate one.
    — Bryan Schott, The Salt Lake Tribune, 6 Dec. 2021
  • Deep in the center of the rosebush and hidden from plain view, pests and disease can get a surreptitious foothold that can end up being very challenging to your entire rose garden.
    — Rita Perwich, San Diego Union-Tribune, 7 May 2022
  • Some of this transformation has been obvious, a result of concrete steps by the app, and some has been a gradual, somewhat surreptitious, process.
    — Hanna Kozlowska, Quartz, 25 Aug. 2019
  • Perlmutter has filed a cross-complaint over the surreptitious collection of his DNA.
    — Eriq Gardner, The Hollywood Reporter, 16 June 2017
  • The surreptitious action is done, in part, to spare the wealthy Persian Gulf kingdom embarrassment, the bureau said.
    — oregonlive, 17 Jan. 2020
  • 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
  • The greatest threat to the election isn’t likely to be surreptitious voting fraud, but disruption, confrontation and efforts to limit voting that are in plain sight.
    — Michael Smolens Columnist, San Diego Union-Tribune, 16 Oct. 2020

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'surreptitious.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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