sub rosa

1. 1.

   in secret or covertly

   “held a meeting sub rosa to avoid general criticism”

Questions about sub rosa

What does sub rosa mean?

sub rosa means "in secret or covertly".

Is sub rosa a common word?

sub rosa is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.