Furtive

 WORD OF THE DAY

furtive / adjective / FER-tiv

Definition
1a: done in a quiet and secretive way to avoid being noticed
1b: surreptitious
1c: expressive of stealth
1d: sly
2a: obtained underhandedly
2b: stolen

Examples
"This little fluffy-looking character [a tree creeper] moves upwards on the tree in a jerky, furtive way in a similar way to that of a mouse on the ground. This style of movement gave rise to its common name of 'tree mouse' in parts of the UK."
 — The Southern Star (Ireland), 3 Mar. 2022

Fall's pleasures were furtive, risky, short-lived-buckeye fights,  … the endless recipes for the apples Mrs. Railsbeck asked him to fetch from the cobwebbed crate in the basement.
— Stewart O'Nan, The Names of the Dead, 1996

Did You Know?
Furtive has a shadowy history. It may have slipped into English directly from the Latin furtivus or it may have covered its tracks by arriving via the French furtif.
We aren't even sure how long it has been a part of the English language. The earliest known written uses of furtive are from the early 1600s, but the derived furtively appears in written form as far back as 1490, suggesting that furtive may have been lurking about for a while.
However furtive got into English, its root is the Latin fur, which is related to, and may come from, the Greek phōr (both words mean "thief").
When first used in English, furtive meant "done by stealth," and later also came to mean, less commonly, "stolen."
Whichever meaning you choose, the elusive ancestry is particularly fitting, since a thief must be furtive to avoid getting caught in the act.