concealment

I

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

Keeping secret

Nouns

1. concealment; hiding[-place]; curtain, screen, blind; smokescreen, ambush, camouflage; hideaway, hideout, sanctum sanctorum, safe house; secret passage or exit, back or side door, escape hatch; trench, foxhole, etc.; disguise, costume, mask, domino, masquerade, shroud, curtain, cloak, smokescreen, veil; invisible ink; incognito, pseudonym; cryptography, steganography, cipher, code; hidden agenda; ace up one's sleeve. Slang, camo. See invisibility.

2. (concealed act) stealth, stealthiness; slyness, cunning; privacy, seclusion; secrecy, secretness (see secret); hide-and-seek, peek-a-boo.

3. (concealing behavior) reticence, silence, taciturnity; arrière pensée, suppression, circumlocution (See avoidance); evasion, equivocation, white lie, misprision (see deception); cover-up, hush-up, conspiracy of silence; underhand dealing; closeness, secretiveness, mystery; latency; stowaway; jargon, cant, officialese, shop talk, gobbledygook, double-talk, subtext. Informal, poker face.

4. (one who operates concealed) operative, sleuth, private investigator, undercover agent, secret agent, spy, mole, plainclothesman. Slang, plumber, spook.

Verbs

1. (hide physically) conceal, hide, secrete, put out of sight, stow; launder; lock up, bottle up; cover, screen, cloak, veil, shroud; draw the veil or curtain, curtain, shade, eclipse, becloud, mask, camouflage, disguise; dissemble (see deception); ensconce, muffle. Slang, stash, plant. See covering.

2. (withhold information) keep from, keep to oneself, keep dark, bury, sink, suppress, keep out of sight, keep in the background; stifle, hush up, gloss over, black out, cover up, smother, withhold, stonewall, bleep, blip, reserve; keep a secret, keep one's own counsel, hold one's tongue; not let the right hand know what the left is doing; hide one's light under a bushel.

3. be concealed or hidden; hide oneself, cover one's tracks, lie in ambush, lie in wait, lie low, lurk, sneak, skulk, slink, prowl; lay for; bury one's head in the sand; play hide-and-seek; take to the woods; hide in holes and corners.

Adjectives

1. concealed, hidden; behind the scenes; up one's sleeve; secret, recondite, arcane, Masonic, mystic; cabalistic, cryptic; privy, clandestine, sub rosa.

2. undercover, in ambush, in hiding, in disguise; in the dark; clouded, invisible; buried, underground, perdu; secluded (see seclusion); undisclosed, untold; cloak-and-dagger; covert, mysterious, unintelligible (see unintelligibility); confidential, classified, top or most secret; latent.

3. furtive, stealthy; skulking, surreptitious, underhand, hole and corner; sly, cunning; secretive, evasive; reserved, reticent, uncommunicative, buttoned up, taciturn.

Adverbs — secretly, in secret, privately, in private; in the dark; behind closed doors, in closed session, hugger-mugger; under the rose, the counter, or the table; sub rosa, in the background, aside, on the sly, with bated breath, sotto voce, in a whisper; under cover or wraps; in [strict] confidence; confidentially, off the record, between ourselves, between you and me, entre nous, in camera; underhand, by stealth, like a thief in the night, stealthily; behind the scenes, behind one's back; incognito.

Phrases — still waters run deep; expletive deleted.

Quotations — Sometimes you need to conceal a fact with words (Machiavelli).

Antonyms, see disclosure.

II

(Roget's IV) n.

1. [Act or means of concealing]

Syn. hiding, covering, camouflage, secretion; see disguise .

2. [Hiding place]

Syn. ambush, haven, shield; see shelter .

III

(Roget's 3 Superthesaurus) n.

covering, hiding, cover-up, disguising, shielding, camouflaging, front, secretion, hiding place, hideaway, blind, shield, cover, refuge.

IV

(Roget's Thesaurus II) noun The habit, practice, or policy of keeping secrets: clandestineness, clandestinity, covertness, huggermugger, huggermuggery, secrecy, secretiveness, secretness. See SHOW.