undercover

See also: under cover

English

Etymology

From under ‎ cover.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌʌndə(ɹ)ˈkʌvə(ɹ)/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Adjective

undercover (comparative more undercover, superlative most undercover)

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

Synonyms

• clandestine
• See also Thesaurus:covert

Derived terms

• undercover car

 

Related terms

• cloak-and-dagger

Translations

Performed or happening in secret

• Bulgarian: таен (bg) (taen)
• Esperanto: kaŝa, sekreta
• Finnish: salainen (fi)
• French: clandestin (fr), secret (fr)
• German: heimlich (de)
• Greek: μυστικός (el) m (mystikós), αφανής (el) m (afanís), κρυφός (el) m (kryfós)
• Italian: clandestino (it)
• Portuguese: encoberto (pt) m, encoberta (pt) f
• Romanian: secret (ro), clandestin (ro), sub acoperire
• Spanish: encubierto (es), clandestino (es)
• Turkish: gizli saklı, gizlice (tr), saman altından, gizli kapaklı (tr) (colloquial)

Employed or engaged in spying or secret investigation

• Bulgarian: под прикритие (pod prikritie)
• Esperanto: inkognita, kaŝa
• Finnish: vakoilu- (fi)
• French: secret (fr)
• German: verdeckt (de)
• Greek: μυστικός (el) m (mystikós)
• Italian: sotto copertura
• Romanian: sub acoperire
• Spanish: incógnito (es) m, de incógnito c, secreto (es) m

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

Noun

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."

Translations

A person who works undercover

• Bulgarian: таен агент m (taen agent)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 卧底 (zh) (wòdǐ)

• Esperanto: sekreta agento, inkognito
• French: agent secret (fr)
• Greek: μυστικός πράκτορας m (mystikós práktoras)

Verb

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.

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English undercover.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌɑn.dərˈkɑ.vər/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: un‧der‧co‧ver

Adjective

undercover (not comparable)

1. undercover

Inflection

Declension of undercover
uninflected	undercover
inflected	undercover
comparative	—
		positive
predicative/adverbial		undercover
indefinite	m./f. sing.	undercover
	n. sing.	undercover
	plural	undercover
definite		undercover
partitive		undercovers

Adverb

undercover

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