All 4 Uses of
furtive
in
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
- for which it reconstructed every five years a leather bed at the Grand Châtelet, that ancient suzerain of feudal society almost expunged from our laws and our cities, hunted from code to code, chased from place to place, has no longer, in our immense Paris, any more than a dishonored corner of the Grève,—than a miserable guillotine, furtive, uneasy, shameful, which seems always afraid of being caught in the act, so quickly does it disappear after having dealt its blow.†
Chpt 1.2.2
- It is certain that he had frequently been seen to pass along the Rue des Lombards, and furtively enter a little house which formed the corner of the Rue des Ecrivans and the Rue Marivault.†
Chpt 1.4.5 *furtively = while taking pains to avoid being observed; or in a nervous manner (as though hoping not to be seen)
- "Listen," said the priest at last, and a singular calm had come over him; "you shall know all I am about to tell you that which I have hitherto hardly dared to say to myself, when furtively interrogating my conscience at those deep hours of the night when it is so dark that it seems as though God no longer saw us.†
Chpt 2.8.4
- A terrified silence ensued among the outcasts, during which nothing was heard, but the cries of alarm of the canons shut up in their cloister, and more uneasy than horses in a burning stable, the furtive sound of windows hastily opened and still more hastily closed, the internal hurly-burly of the houses and of the Hôtel-Dieu, the wind in the flame, the last death-rattle of the dying, and the continued crackling of the rain of lead upon the pavement.†
Chpt 2.10.4
Definition:
taking pains to avoid being observed
or:
in a manner indicating nervousness (being cautious or appearing suspicious)
or:
in a manner indicating nervousness (being cautious or appearing suspicious)