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say it: FUR-tiv
furtive is an adjective meaning "marked by quiet and caution and secrecy; taking pains to avoid being observed". It carries 2 recorded senses.
marked by quiet and caution and secrecy; taking pains to avoid being observed
“a furtive manner”
“a sneak attack”
“stealthy footsteps”
“a surreptitious glance at his watch”
secret and sly or sordid
“backstairs gossip”
“his low backstairs cunning”
“backstairs intimacies”
“furtive behavior”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for furtive come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.