COVERTLY Synonyms: 27 Similar and Opposite Words

covertly

adverb

Definition of covertly

as in clandestinely

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Recent Examples of covertly Either form can be easily and covertly placed into an unsuspecting person’s beverage or food. — Christopher P. Holstege, The Conversation, 15 Oct. 2026 While renting a charming Mediterranean Revival-style villa in the Hollywood Hills, the FBI tapped her phone lines and the CIA covertly intercepted and opened her mail. — Wendy Bowman, Robb Report, 14 Oct. 2026 That’s progress but doesn’t really address people’s primary concerns about the glasses being used to covertly record people in public. — Victoria Song, The Verge, 23 Sep. 2026 Because submarines can operate covertly for extended periods, additional missile capacity can give commanders greater flexibility while keeping the launch platform difficult to detect. — Prabhat Ranjan Mishra, Interesting Engineering, 17 Sep. 2026 Anthropic feared that these researchers were covertly using Claude to create bioweapons. — Kate Rooney,isabel O'Brien, CNBC, 11 Sep. 2026 Its applications in education – whether that’s been district-sanctioned or students using it covertly to finish homework – have also grown. — Austin Horn, Miami Herald, 2 Sep. 2026 Franklin was even humping someone, while Bodhi was covertly trying to eat his own poop. — Mimi Montgomery, PEOPLE, 26 Aug. 2026 Yet despite fewer transits, increasing volumes of oil are bypassing the strait altogether or relying on US protection and ship-to-ship transfers to move oil covertly out of the Persian Gulf. — Hanna Ziady, CNN Money, 20 Aug. 2026

Recent Examples of Synonyms for covertly

Adverb

Because Iran is a theocratic dictatorship that routinely arrests and in some cases executes journalists, Western reporters hoping to cover the country must either work clandestinely or submit to government supervision.

— James Kirchick, The Atlantic, 29 July 2026
Soon afterward, social media commenters were speculating about whether Sierra broke into the office or was caught clandestinely shredding documents.

— Don Stacom, Hartford Courant, 10 July 2026

Definition of clandestinely

Adverb

Fro-yo heads will tell you, conspiratorially, that Butterfield Market is rumored to have the same supplier as Forty Carrots, the café tucked away on the seventh floor of Bloomingdale’s which claims to have introduced frozen yogurt to New York City some fifty years ago.

— Helen Rosner, New Yorker, 28 June 2026
That Hanson so could faithfully and conspiratorially convey that in her naturalistic, uncontrived images came from a place of friendship.

— Mark Holgate, Vogue, 5 Sep. 2025

Definition of conspiratorially

Adverb

Among the most intriguing possibilities, Brouhard said, is that Gulf nations exporting oil are surreptitiously paying Iran fees in exchange for safe transit through the Strait of Hormuz – even as they’re secured by US military escorts.

— David Goldman, CNN Money, 6 Oct. 2026
In the first image above, Wardle can be seen using a simple terminal command to surreptitiously send a prompt to the Meta endpoint.

— Dan Goodin, ArsTechnica, 21 Sep. 2026

Definition of surreptitiously

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covert

covertly

covertness

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“Covertly.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/covertly. Accessed 20 Oct. 2026.

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Synonyms of covertly

adverb

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