undercover

From under +‎ cover.

• IPA^(key): /ˌʌndə(ɹ)ˈkʌvə(ɹ)/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Audio (US):

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undercover (comparative more undercover, superlative most undercover)

1. Performed or happening in secret.
2. Employed or engaged in spying or secret investigation.

• clandestine
• See also Thesaurus:covert

• cloak-and-dagger

undercover (plural undercovers)

1. A person who works undercover.
   • 1990 December 16, Gianni Comes, “Not Just Homophobia”, in Gay Community News, volume 18, number 22, page 4:

     Then there's the heterosexual, open-mined ^[sic] entourage who loves us dearly and are our best friends. They laugh at our humor and understand our sorrow. For they are rare and unique in prison. But the vipers always ruin things. They refer to our straight friends as "Closet-Cases," "Undercovers," and "Flip-Floppers."

undercover (third-person singular simple present undercovers, present participle undercovering, simple past and past participle undercovered)

1. To provide too little coverage.
   • 2000, Robin R. Henke, Phillipp Kaufman, Stephen P. Broughman, Kathryn Chandler, Issues related to estimating the home-schooled population in theUnited States with national household survey data, →ISBN:

     The estimates of bias reported here depend on the assumption that 6- to 14-year-olds were undercovered at the same rate as children 0 to 14 years old and that 16- to 17-year-olds were undercovered at the same rate as 16- to 19-year-olds.

   • 2004, Gary Orfield, Dropouts in America: confronting the graduation rate crisis, page 116:

     To oversimplify, if black males age 20 to 29 are undercovered by 50 percent, then the first stage sampling weights for black males age 20 to 29 are doubled to properly sum to known population totals.

Borrowed from English undercover.

• IPA^(key): /ˌɑn.dərˈkɑ.vər/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: un‧der‧co‧ver

undercover (not comparable)

1. undercover

undercover

1. undercover (in a covert fashion, not using one's real identity)