All 5 Uses
furtive
in
Brideshead Revisited
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- The further we drove from Brideshead, the more he seemed to cast off his uneasiness—the almost furtive restlessness and irritability that had possessed him.†
p. 42.7
- My father from long habit took a book with him to the table and then, remembering my presence, furtively dropped it under his chair.†
p. 69.3furtively = while taking pains to avoid being observed; or in a nervous manner (as though hoping not to be seen)
- Then he looked round furtively to see if he had been observed, caught my eye, and giggled nervously.†
p. 279.1 *
- As he spoke the bar and the bar-tender, the blue wicker furniture, the gambling-machines, the gramophone, the couple of youths dancing on the oilcloth, the youths sniggering round the slots, the purple-veined, stiffly-dressed elderly man drinking in the corner opposite us, the whole drab and furtive joint seemed to fade, and I was back in Oxford looking out over Christ Church meadow through a window of Ruskin-Gothic.†
p. 311.1
- I had been right, everyone else had been wrong, truth had prevailed; the threat that I had felt hanging over Julia and me ever since that evening at the fountain, had been averted, perhaps dispelled for ever; and there was also—I can now confess it—another unexpressed, inexpressible, indecent little victory that I was furtively celebrating.†
p. 378.9furtively = while taking pains to avoid being observed; or in a nervous manner (as though hoping not to be seen)
Definitions:
-
(1)
(furtive) taking pains to avoid being observed
or:
in a manner indicating nervousness (being cautious or appearing suspicious) - (2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)