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Covertly   /koʊvˈərtli/   Listen
Covertly

adverb
1.
In a covert manner.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Covertly" Quotes from Famous Books



... be alive and technically sane, but openly or covertly hostile to us." Spalding glanced briefly at each of the others, then went on, "It is because of this particular possibility that our contact group here has been very carefully selected. If such has been the result of Dr. McAllen's experiment, it will be our disagreeable duty to ...
— Gone Fishing • James H. Schmitz

... eye had been covertly scanning the flickering shadows and the fluctuating slants of yellow light about them. Now he boldly threw his glance over ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... she walked unsteadily to the fireplace. She stood for a moment, her fingers working convulsively, staring into the smouldering embers, and then sank into a chair, for her limbs were shaking under her. He followed slowly and stooped to stir the fire to a blaze. Covertly she looked at him as the red light illuminated his face and scalding tears gathered in her eyes. And, curiously, it was not wholly of herself that she was thinking. She was envying, with a feeling of hopeless intolerable pain, that other ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... second-skin of tanned hide? By which change Huddersfield and Manchester, and Coventry and Paisley, and the Fancy-Bazaar, were reduced to hungry solitudes; and only Day and Martin could profit. For neither would Teufelsdroeckh's mad daydream, here as we presume covertly intended, of levelling Society (levelling it indeed with a vengeance, into one huge drowned marsh!), and so attaining the political effects of Nudity without its frigorific or other consequences,—be thereby realised. ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... hard to face those people again after the events of the morning. He could feel them covertly nudging each other and grinning as he went up to the pulpit. He chided himself for the momentary annoyance it caused him. Were they not like so many naughty, ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... gasping in astonishment as Dora covertly watched the effect of her words. "You have the antidote, then?" ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey

... and spring of 1866 we continued covertly supplying arms and ammunition to the Liberals—sending as many as 30,000 muskets from Baton Rouge Arsenal alone—and by mid-summer Juarez, having organized a pretty good sized army, was in possession ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 5 • P. H. Sheridan

... another's society for many days, and had no need for words to express the enjoyment they felt in a smoke and a nip. Occasionally one would glance towards the door as man after man trudged into the room, toil-stained and unkempt, and stood covertly watching the four ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott

... turned away, placed himself before the fireplace and seemed thoughtful. He bent his head; but his eyes were covertly fixed on Madame Jules, who, not remembering the reflections in the mirror, cast two or three glances at him that were full of terror. Presently she made a sign to her husband and rising took his arm to walk about the salon. As she passed before ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac

... from this position, which we regard as impregnable, we shall be prepared more deliberately and intelligibly to contemplate the various assaults which are openly or covertly made upon the doctrine that God is cognizable by ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... cousin, take his mother, and turn his back upon the village altogether. He knew what he had to expect. He tasted well in advance the miserable and half ludicrous shame of a man who has been openly jilted by a woman. He tasted, too, the covertly whispered suspicion which had perhaps never quite departed, and which now was surely raised to new life by Dorothy's loud cries of accusation. He knew that he was utterly defenceless under both shame and suspicion, being fettered fast by his own tardy but stern sense of ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... by it—this was what king and country secretly desired and labored for. Pending a favorable opportunity for promoting this higher interest, war went on in Brittany between John of Montfort and Charles of Blois, who continued to be encouraged and patronized, covertly, one by the King of England, the other by the King of France. Almost immediately after the accession of Charles V. it broke out again between him and his brother-in-law, Charles the Bad, King of Navarre, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... Merrington paused abruptly in his impatient pacing of the carpet, and glanced at him covertly from his deep-set little eyes. If he had consulted his own feelings he would have told the Chief Constable that it was not the time to air theories about the crime. But in his present position it behoved ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... believing, as they doubtless did, that upon the crumbled and mouldering ruins of a dissevered Union and ruptured Republic, Monarchical ideas might the more easily take root and grow. But experience had already taught them that it would be long before their real object could even be covertly hinted at, and that in the meantime it must be kept out of sight by the agitation of other political issues. The formulation and promulgation therefore, by Jefferson, in the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, and by Madison, in the Virginia Resolutions of 1799, of the doctrine of States Rights ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan

... the two last mentioned Engines, having acted covertly for some time, which they had the better opportunity to do, because they had both appeared among the other Party, which now I'll call Whigs; before, the first of these carried it stiff and forward when he talked with ...
— Atalantis Major • Daniel Defoe

... Covertly, from beneath the shade of her big hat, Molly watched him with troubled eyes. The sun had gone down behind the hills, and the water had ceased to glitter. There was a suggestion of chill in the air. The great ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse

... her cabin, Coleman strolled into the smoking room. Every man there covertly or openly surveyed him. He dropped lazily into a chair at a table where the wine merchant, the Chicago railway king and the New York millionaire were playing cards. They made a noble pretense of not being aware ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane

... the instrument, she resumed her book and sat down at a table studiously; but Doctor Frank, watching her covertly, saw she did not turn over a page in an hour. She was the first to retire—very early, looking pale and jaded to death. Half an hour later, Eeny followed her, and then Captain Danton pushed away the chess-board impatiently. He had been playing with the Doctor, ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming

... resumed their interrupted chat, glancing covertly at Nancy as often as they could. Colonel Smith and Gurley were standing by the window so deep in conversation that neither noticed ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... proved too tempting. She passed irrevocably from his hands into those of the enemy. But any reader of these lines will, I trust, rejoice to hear that this attempt to restrain free political expression in the foot-hills failed signally. For, although she was again covertly introduced on the platform by the Bungstarters, and placed face to face with Colonel Starbottle at Murphy's Camp, she was dumb. Even a brass band failed to excite her emulation. Either she had become disgusted with politics or the higher prices paid by the ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte

... listening, but watching the girl and Mr. Erad covertly, saw the former's face flame hotly at the shot. But her murmured reply was too ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe

... the bar Brill covertly studied the man who was responsible for this change. Four men from the Halfmoon D stood grouped at one end of the room. They split up and mingled among the others. Brill moved up and down behind the bar, polishing it with ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts

... developing intellectually, I was now furiously scowled upon by my father; my mother looked grieved and anxious, and even my aunt had about her an expression of seeming to think that maybe I had gone too far. I took a vicious bite out of an India-rubber ring, and covertly broke the rattle over the kitten's head, but said nothing. Presently my ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... little rowing skiff and half a dozen well armed, as Captain Morgan and Captain Sampson, with some others, beside the rowers, and went to view what guard the enemy kept, as also to take knowledge of the ground. And albeit he went as covertly as might be, yet the enemy, taking the alarm, grew fearful that the whole force was approaching to the assault, and therefore with all speed abandoned the place after the shooting of some of their pieces. They thus gone, and he being returned unto us again, but nothing ...
— Drake's Great Armada • Walter Biggs

... to put on his skates, covertly watching the performance of the first fellow to show off. It was good work that Greg watched, but he ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock

... Andros, many of the people of New England held the groundless and foolish belief that he was in secret collusion with the French and Indians. Their most dangerous domestic enemies were some of their own traders, who covertly sold arms and ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman

... not answer. Covertly and with a sly shamefacedness, unlike himself, he was trying to read the expression in the huntsman's face. But that faithful fellow's eyes were bland. There was no sign that he had seen anything out ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... feelings, smiled covertly while she busied herself with cups, plates, and pannikins. Lucy, who did not understand his feelings, thought, "he must be a good-natured fellow to speak so kindly to a child who had annoyed him very much." Lucy did not admit that she herself had been much annoyed by ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne

... men had had little more than the full of a sherry glass each. To these Morano made signs that there was another bottle, and, coming round behind his master, he covertly uncorked it and gave them their heart's desire; and a little was left over for the man who drank third on the first occasion. And presently the spirits of all four of la Garda grew haughty and forgot their humble bodies, ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany

... railroads and grapple with giant trees in the forests of the Pacific slope—are, as a rule, distinguished by a splendid charity. With them the sick or worn-out stranger is very seldom turned away. Still, watching her companion covertly, she understood that this man whom she had seen for the first time three days ago had done exactly what she would have expected of him. Then she proceeded to give him the ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... of an American, or any one else, to expose the errors that abounded in this pretended statistical account, but I had little disposition for the task. Having, however, good reason to think it was aimed covertly at General Lafayette, with the intention to prove his ignorance of the America he so much applauded, I yielded to his repeated requests, and wrote a hasty letter to him, dissecting, as well as my knowledge and limited access to authorities permitted, the mistakes of ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... uncertain,—hovering, after dropping the cards, aimlessly about Tommy, and being only recalled by a strong nervous effort. Yet, notwithstanding this incapacity for even honest manipulation, Mr. Johnson covertly turned a knave from the bottom of the pack with such shameless inefficiency and gratuitous unskilfulness, that even Tommy was obliged to cough and look elsewhere to hide his embarrassment. Possibly for this reason the young gentleman was himself constrained, by ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... the stage of demitasse and cigarette when he laid down cup and cigarette and, fetching a bit of cardboard and a crayon out of his pocket, began putting down lines and shadings; between strokes he covertly studied the profile of the man who was giving the dinner party. Not to be outdone the artist hauled out his drawing pad and pencil and made a quick sketch of the long-faced man. Both finished their jobs practically at the same ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... occasionally, in the confidences of the smoking-room, undesirably loquacious. For this fault there is no excuse, unless such a one as justifies the practice of inflicting reprisals in international quarrels; it being quite certain that our failures are no secret—indeed there must be covertly (but extensively) circulating somewhere a Gazette wherein such occurrences are registered—there is a kind of "wild justice" even in smoking-room disclosures. But whatever our bad or good fortune may have been, it is not to be supposed for a moment that any ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope

... now so openly manifested that it could no longer be winked at, and it drew forth a remonstrance from the British cabinet. The remonstrance was civilly answered, and the traffic in British prizes was carried on somewhat more covertly in the French ports in Europe; but it was evident that both France and Spain were in a state of active preparation for war. The British ministry could no longer shut their eyes against the gathering storm, and began to prepare for it. About the middle of October ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... them in order to create internal confusion and uncertainty. Foreign political leaders of Fascist or authoritarian persuasion were encouraged and often liberally subsidized from Nazi funds. Control was covertly obtained over influential newspapers and periodicals and their editorial policies shaped in such a way as to further Nazi ends. In the countries Germany sought to overpower, all the highly developed organs of Nazi propaganda were utilized to confuse and ...
— Readings on Fascism and National Socialism • Various

... Deerslayer," returned the girl, gladly availing herself of the opportunity of indirectly extolling the qualities which had so strongly interested her in her listener; hoping by these means covertly to approach the subject nearest her heart. "In the first place, looks in a man are of no importance with a woman, provided he is manly, and not ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... way to their own purposes for devouring Cathedral Churches, and Bishops' livings. 3. By exclaiming against abuses in the Church, they have carried their own corrupt dealing in the Civil State more covertly. For such is the nature of the multitude, that they are not able to apprehend many things at once; so as being possessed with a dislike or liking of any one thing, many other in the mean time may escape them without being perceived. 4. They have sought to disgrace ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton

... brightly expectant. Chocolate mice were next distributed. The four guests were now so much of the party as to manifest quick hostility to a fifth boy who had beamingly essayed to be numbered among them. They officiously snubbed and even covertly threatened this fifth boy, who none the less lingered very determinedly by the host, and was presently rewarded with sticky largesse; whereupon he was accepted by the four, and himself became hostile to ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... appreciation of others yet to come, he is offering up homage,—he describes her Majesty by the very same imagery he had elsewhere employed to depict his lady-love; and ostensibly applies to the royal Elizabeth the amatory terms which are covertly meant for an Elizabeth of his own,—between whom and her royal type he either saw or affected to see a personal resemblance. Here we find her placed by ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... though he were diving, with no more life left in him. Then Teucer wounded Glaucus the brave son of Hippolochus as he was coming on to attack the wall. He saw his shoulder bare and aimed an arrow at it, which made Glaucus leave off fighting. Thereon he sprang covertly down for fear some of the Achaeans might see that he was wounded and taunt him. Sarpedon was stung with grief when he saw Glaucus leave him, still he did not leave off fighting, but aimed his spear at Alcmaon the son of Thestor ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... herself she bit her lip and pushed the tumbled hair off her forehead. He dropped on to the divan beside her and lit the inevitable cigarette; he smoked continuously every moment he was not in the saddle. She glanced at him covertly. He was lying with his head thrown back against the cushions, idly blowing smoke-rings and watching them drift towards the open door-way. And as she looked he ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull

... him, for the most part, a curt greeting. They glanced more covertly at his wife; he understood exactly what thoughts brought out this condemnation soiled by private speculation; and his disdain mounted at their sleek backs and glossy tile, hats supported ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer

... been the thought that a man so subtle as Emile would flagrantly reveal a passing phase of his nature, a secret irritability, a jealousy, perhaps, or a sudden hatred in a sentence written for any eyes that chose to see. But he might covertly reveal himself to one who understood ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... Berry returned to his roll and, after eyeing it with disgust which the bread in no way deserved, proceeded to disrupt and eviscerate it with every circumstance of barbarity. Covertly, ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates

... Jimmy Grayson deepened. What right had Jimmy Grayson or Jimmy Grayson's wife, which was the same thing, to interfere in his private affairs? And it was only a step from one's private life to one's public life. Wrong in one, wrong in the other. Mr. Crayon, watching him keenly though covertly, was pleased with the varying expressions that passed over the unbearded portions of the "King's" face. He read there anger, jealousy, and revenge, and he said to himself that he would bend this man, big and strong as ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... her—a familiarity that was not a friendly one—the covert presumption of the mean-hearted toward their unfortunate superiors. She did not hear the subsequent conversation in the servants' hall, and it was well she did not, for, though the insolence that vaunts itself covertly is hard to bear, it is not so hard as that which visibly hurts the ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr

... Covertly he looked at her, as she sat near him, her yellow hair rolling and blowing back from her forehead, her hands clasped over her knee, looking out over the ...
— Blix • Frank Norris

... Association, no one hinted outside it, that it ought to violate one of its rules. No one complained of these rules, or said they ought to be changed, modified or, to the least extent, relaxed. Neither directly nor indirectly, openly nor covertly, was there a word spoken, nor an act done, nor a suggestion offered to that effect. The resolution was, therefore, uncalled for and unnecessary, as it was ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny

... of them, noticeable for the rosaries hanging from their necks (dangerous as it was to carry that sign of a religion which was suppressed, rather than abolished) shook their long hair and raised their heads defiantly. They covertly examined the woods, and paths, and masses of rock which flanked the road, after the manner of a dog with his nose to the wind trying to scent his game; and then, hearing nothing but the monotonous tramp of the silent company, they lowered their heads once more with the old expression of ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac

... the matter and completed arrangements whereby Mr. Blaine was to undertake the work. Toward the latter end of the talk, Bok had covertly—as he thought—looked at his watch to keep ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)

... stood upon his hearthrug, conversing with the Bishop of Bellminster and covertly regarding his betrothed out of the corner of an apprehensive eye. They had not met alone since the morning, and he was naturally anxious to find out whether that unlucky "Claudia" had been overheard. Claudia ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope

... from the grins of appreciation of the recipients I concluded that they were all well satisfied. Then, with the inquisitiveness of the lower type of savage, they began to question me, not in a straightforward fashion, but covertly and by roundabout processes, with the view of discovering my motive for journeying so far from my own people; whereupon I told them frankly that I was a hunter and trader, seeking for ivory and gold. They did not seem to understand what I meant by "gold" until I spoke of it as the yellow ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood

... this plan Swell's corps was covertly moved early in June into the Shenandoah Valley. Hooker, anticipating some such scheme, had suggested to Mr. Lincoln that, if it were entered upon, he should like to cross the river and attack the Southern rear corps in Fredericksburg. The President suggested that the intrenched ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse

... same distress which made her lose them. Led by an agonizing curiosity she returned to the salon, which presented a picture worthy of the brush of a genre painter. The abbe, still seated at the card-table and mechanically playing with the counters, was covertly observing Corentin and Peyrade, who were standing together at a corner of the fireplace and speaking in a low voice. Several times Corentin's keen eye met the not less keen glance of the priest; but, like two adversaries who knew themselves equally strong, and who return ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac

... had been divided during the period concerning which Thucydides wrote. The conflict was not, as it is in ordinary times, between state and state, but between two omnipresent factions, each of which was in some places dominant and in other places oppressed, but which, openly or covertly, carried on their strife in the bosom of every society. No man asked whether another belonged to the same country with himself, but whether he belonged to the same sect. Party-spirit seemed to justify and consecrate acts which, in any other times, would have been considered as the foulest ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... camp's respect for him. Nevertheless, we spoke of him familiarly to strangers at the very moment he ignored us. I am afraid that we also took some pains to point out that he was getting fat and unwieldy, and losing his elasticity, implying covertly that his choice was a mistake and his ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... The flag puzzles Hutchins. She is covertly watching it. It is evidently a signal—but to whom? Are the secret-service men closing ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... She eyed Lawford covertly as, with swelling muscles and lithe, swinging body, he drove his sculling oar. "But he does look more 'to the manner born'—much more the man, in ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper

... it; it was large enough to be an organism with independent life. But when Langley, with some misgiving, trusted his own bony fingers within that grasp, in was only as if something fleshy, soft, and bloodless had closed over them. When his hand was released he rubbed it covertly against his trowser leg—to remove dirt—restore the circulation. He did not ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand

... occurred to him, but he hesitated, for their old friendship had lately been cooling down. He felt that the fraternity of the earlier times of effort no longer existed between them. He guessed that Dubuche lacked intelligence, had become covertly hostile, and was occupied with ambitions different from his own. However, he, Claude, must go somewhere. So he made up his mind, and repaired to the Rue Jacob, where the architect rented a small room on the sixth floor of ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... should have remained so long at the Big House at this particular time might have found plausible answer in any of a dozen ways. There were reasons indeed why Decherd should be covertly pleased at matters as he now found them. Colonel Blount touched his pride keenly enough by practically ignoring his presence, yet he made amends by continuing moody and aloof, spending little time about the house. John Eddring ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough

... and his underhand behaviour, the more I seemed to hate him, till at last I felt in quite a frenzy against him. I vowed to myself that in the morning I would see him, and if I could force him to confess his dastardly behaviour in not posting the letters to me, and in making love covertly to my affianced bride, I would thrash him soundly. My only fear was that I should do him some permanent bodily injury if he sneered at me, or in any way tried to ignore my right to put certain questions ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling

... on a bicycle—hatless, head in air, sitting very erect. There was only one boy at St Rupert's who carried his head that way and sat his bicycle just so. From the first Roy had watched him covertly, with devout admiration; longing to know him, too shy to ask his name. But so far the godlike one, surrounded by friends, had hardly ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... morrow by the fall of a block of stone.* It was in the midst of jeers and hisses that the Commissary carried off the pots of flowers, the tapers which he found burning, the coppers and the silver hearts which lay upon the sand. People clenched their fists, and covertly called him "thief" and "murderer." Then the posts for the palisades were planted in the ground, and the rails were nailed to the crossbars, no little labour being performed to shut off the Mystery, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... low, and when he rose he was eleven feet high. As he swelled out past me he covertly pulled down the corner of his eye with his finger and muttered part of that defiled refrain, "Oh, tears, ah, tears, oh, sad sweet tears!—name in General Orders—personal mention ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain

... and took to bad courses for a while. He had money and he was popular; and he divided his time curiously between musical and motoring circles. Then he had been sent for a term to Cambridge to see a little life. His father, remonstrative, but covertly proud of the excess, had paid his bills and brought him home. It was at Cambridge that he had met Segouin. They were not much more than acquaintances as yet but Jimmy found great pleasure in the society of one who had ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce

... the master's beckoning eye and came forward, slightly abashed, with a flush of irritation still on his handsome face, and his chestnut curls slightly rumpled. One, which Octavia had covertly accented by twisting round her forefinger, stood up like a crest on ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte

... to. Janie liked this air of his, even while she resented it; here, in his own county at least, a Tristram of Blent was somebody. Bob Broadley was listening to Iver's views on local affairs; he was not in the fight at all, but he was covertly watching it. Perhaps Iver watched too, but it was not easy to penetrate the thoughts of that astute man of business. The fortune of battle seemed to incline to Harry's side; the Major was left out of the talk for minutes together. More for fun ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope

... still smiling at me. She was waiting for the spell of these surroundings, the spirit of this place, to do their work with me, perhaps; was willing to take her time with charm of eye and arm and hair and curved fingers, which did not openly invite and did not covertly repel. But I saw that her attitude toward me held no more than that of bird of prey and some little creature well within its power. It made me ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough

... hour had passed when my uncle, who had all the while been covertly gazing on the surface of the little bay, rose to his feet and bade me follow his example. Now I should say that the great run of tide at the south-west end of Aros exercises a perturbing influence round all the coast. In Sandag Bay, to the south, a strong current runs at certain points of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson

... firm pose and face steadily to the fore invited with no sign; and after covertly stealing a glance or two at her clear unresponsive profile I still could manage no theme that would loosen my tongue. Thereby let her think me a dolt. Thank Heaven, after another twenty-four hours at most it might not ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin

... and, leaning against the opposite wall, covertly watched her, while ostensibly listening with due sympathy to the hopes and fears of an old friend and embryo author. In a moment he made a discovery—of his friend's confidence I regret to say he heard not one word—she did not treat him as she treated other men. Well bred as she was, ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... Mr. Moore," said Miss Georgie, coming suddenly back from the window—and she was blushing furiously, up to the roots of her pretty golden-red hair, and covertly laughing at the same time, "my difficulty is that I try to do my best as the woman who unexpectedly sees her dead brother before her; but I've got nothing to come and go on. I never saw a dead body in my life; and it would hardly do to try it with a ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... of the house noticed she hardly knew. Aunt Janet had fallen into the habit of watching her covertly, pathetically; she was trying in her own way to read the secret hidden away behind a changed Joan. But she did her best to keep her curiosity out of sight; she was very gentle, very anxious to divert Joan's thoughts ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson

... taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress, against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... hostilities, and furnished them with arms and munitions of war. The British held the Lake Posts by open exhibition of strength, though they too were not above conniving at treachery and allowing their agents covertly to urge the red tribes to resist the American advance; but the Spaniards, by preference, trusted to ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt

... patented, the tariff gets a lot steeper compared to taking vitamins. (Since they are naturally-occurring substances, vitamins can't be patented and therefore, aren't big-profit items. Perhaps that's one reason the FDA is so covertly opposed to vitamins.) Right now it would be quite possible to spend many hundred dollars per month on a life extension program that included most of ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon

... long as she touched Jim's hand he never would understand. Then as she began to measure out flour and milk and lard and salt and yeast she saw with despair that Jim was not looking at the ingredients, was not paying the slightest attention to them. His eyes were covertly ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey

... embarked them on their ship, with their prisoner, after giving them some pieces of silver and other things with which they were pleased. Although, in the opinion of the majority of those in the city, it seemed that it was beyond all reason that the Chinese should attack the country, the governor began covertly to prepare ships and other things suitable for defense, and made haste to complete extensive repairs which he had begun to make on the fort of Sanctiago at the point of the river, and for the defense of the fort he built on the inside a wall of great strength, with its wings, facing ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga

... accuses Lamachus of having been made general, rather by bribery than merit. He imputes to him his youth, inexperience, and idleness; at the same time that he, and many others, whom he covertly designates, convert to their own use the rewards due only to valour and real services. He reproaches the republic with their preference of the younger citizens to the elder, in the government of the state, and the command ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... was all right, and the family said it must have been a fever,—perhaps from overstudy,—at which Hal covertly smiled. But his father was still too anxious about him to let him out of his sight, so he put him on a cot in his room, and thus it chanced that the mother and Grace ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie

... masquerade as marriage—women who have no virtues save one tied like millstones to some of earth's noblemen; great-hearted and great-souled women mated with clods. I see people insanely jealous of one another, suspicious, fault-finding, malicious; covertly sending barbed shafts to one another through the medium of general conversation. As if love were ever to be held captive, or be won by cords and chains! As if the freest thing on earth would for a moment enter into bondage, or minister unto selfishness when it is, ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... seemed shy of him. They looked at him covertly, and then turned their eyes quickly away, as if he were some horrible object. It annoyed ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"

... Esteban covertly appraised his sister's charms, but respecting her terror of Cobo he did not speak his thoughts. He was certain, however, that Rosa knew, as well as he, what motive lay behind the fellow's tireless persecutions of the ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... apply the vineae and to spring mines: nor was any measure, whether of open force or stratagem, unemployed against the various attempts of the enemy. These allies of the Romans erected bulwarks against the vineae, cut off the mines of the enemy by cross-mines, and met their efforts both covertly and openly, till, at last, shame compelled Hannibal to desist from his undertaking; and, fortifying a camp in which he placed a small guard, that the affair might not appear to have been abandoned, he ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius

... had his feet cocked on the window ledge and was smoking a cigar, but as soon as she entered the room he—without premeditation—brought his feet down to the floor and crushed out the lighted tip of his cigar under the window ledge. Over the top of the paper he glanced at her covertly from time to time. ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... She covertly watched his preparations. He tore a dry leaf from a notebook and broke the bullet out of a cartridge, damping the powder with water from a pitcher-plant. Smearing the composition on the paper, he placed it in the sun, where it dried at once. He gathered a small bundle of ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... shaded windows fell upon her glorious face. Chase sat in silence for many minutes, covertly feasting his eyes upon her loveliness. Her trim, graceful, seductive figure was outlined against the darkness; a delicate, sensuous fragrance exhaled from her person, filling him with an indescribable delight and languor; the ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon

... some awe. The large room also held many more guests than usual at such an hour, but most of them ate little, only an egg or a roll, perhaps, or they dallied over a cup of coffee, reserving most of their attention for Willet, whom they regarded covertly, but with extraordinary interest. The youth with him had shown himself to be a fine swordsman, as Count Jean de Mezy could testify, but the elder man, who had appeared to be a hunter, and who claimed to be one, ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler

... not," answered the witness—his face all aflame. The idea that he could be suspected, or covertly charged, with crime, in the presence of friends and strangers, was so terrible that the man tottered on ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland

... of disposition; and to her steady refusal to allow Miss Monro to invite Canon Livingstone to the small teas they were in the habit of occasionally giving. Yet he persevered in his calls; about once every fortnight he came, and would sit an hour or more, looking covertly at his watch, as if as Miss Monro shrewdly observed to herself, he did not go away at last because he wished to do so, but because he ought. Sometimes Ellinor was present, sometimes she was away; in this latter case Miss Monro thought she could detect a certain wistful ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell

... snatch from his official duties he devoted to some scrap of paper, booklet, or magazine. He strove to cultivate his reasoning powers. Never did a prospective client enter the Malcolm Sage Bureau without automatically setting into operation William Johnson's mental induction-coil. With eyes that were covertly keen, he would examine the visitor as he sat waiting for the two sharp buzzes on the private telephone which indicated that Malcolm ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins

... thereafter befell its arms, down to the fall of Vicksburg." In response to Lincoln's call for troops, the governor refused to send any from Missouri. An extraordinary state convention, called in this crisis, voted against secession. Seeing that the governor, notwithstanding this, was covertly aiming at throwing himself and the State, so far as he could, in with the Confederacy, young Frank Blair and General Nathaniel Lyon, carrying things with a high hand, seized and dispersed the state militia encamped in Saint Louis, got control ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How

... of Lord Russell respecting the proposition to abolish privateering was covertly insulting. It asked to interpolate a new condition as between France and England of the one part and the United States of the other; and a condition conceived in a spirit of liberality toward Jeff Davisdom, and promulgated in a meddlesome mood toward ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... watching him covertly, wondered astutely if over the first meal she had cooked for him Jim Kendric wasn't readjusting his ancient ideas of woman. For some hidden reason, or for no reason at all, her silence ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... characteristic of that epoch and civilization. I had purchased the Spanish title, the only LEGAL one, to the land, which, however, had been in POSSESSION of a "squatter." But he had been unable to hold that possession against a "jumper,"—another kind of squatter who had entered upon it covertly, fenced it in, and marked it out in building sites. Neither having legal rights, they could not invoke the law; the last man held possession. There was no doubt that in due course of litigation and time both these ingenuous gentlemen would have been dispossessed in favor of the real owner,—myself,—but ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte

... of war by means of secret loans, and their merchants were equally complaisant in regard to provisions. These services were appreciated by Bonaparte as much as they were resented by Nelson; and possibly the succour which Genoese money and shipping covertly rendered to the French expeditions for the recovery of Corsica may have helped to efface from Bonaparte's memory the associations clustering around the once-revered name of Paoli. From ill-concealed hostility he drifted into a position of tolerance and finally of friendship towards Genoa, ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... covertly eyeing each other with suspicion, stood in the hallway when I opened the door. To my invitation to come in each responded "Thank you," and the entrance of both was quiet. When they sat down in the chairs I drew forward for them I mentally ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison

... Machiavellian cleverness of Manton. Here he was, on one hand openly working with, yet secretly ruining, the Manton Pictures, while on the other hand he was covertly building up the competing ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve

... be an accurate timekeeper, do you think?" asked Barrant, looking mistrustfully at the motionless face of the moon, as though he suspected it of covertly sneering at him. ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees

... hostilities between the citizens on the one hand and the monks on the other, was brought about by his arbitrary assumption of power; the bishop throughout, ostensibly preferring the safer game of a somewhat anomalous position of neutrality, is nevertheless believed to have covertly ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Norwich - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. H. B. Quennell



Words linked to "Covertly" :   covert, overtly



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