STEALTH

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does stealth mean? 

• STEALTH (noun)
  The noun STEALTH has 1 sense:

1. avoiding detection by moving carefully

  Familiarity information: STEALTH used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• STEALTH (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Avoiding detection by moving carefully

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

stealing; stealth

Hypernyms ("stealth" is a kind of...):

concealing; concealment; hiding (the activity of keeping something secret)

Derivation:

stealthy (marked by quiet and caution and secrecy; taking pains to avoid being observed)

 Context examples 

To further increase the in vivo circulation time, liposomes in some preparations are covalently derivatized with PEG to produce PEGylated or stealth liposomes.

(Injectable Liposomal Suspension Dosage Form, NCI Thesaurus/CDISC)

I admired virtue and good feelings and loved the gentle manners and amiable qualities of my cottagers, but I was shut out from intercourse with them, except through means which I obtained by stealth, when I was unseen and unknown, and which rather increased than satisfied the desire I had of becoming one among my fellows.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

When, under cover of the night, I flew to Miss Mills, whom I saw by stealth in a back kitchen where there was a mangle, and implored Miss Mills to interpose between us and avert insanity.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

“I had only my own family to study from. There is my father—another of my father—but the idea of sitting for his picture made him so nervous, that I could only take him by stealth; neither of them very like therefore. Mrs. Weston again, and again, and again, you see. Dear Mrs. Weston! always my kindest friend on every occasion. She would sit whenever I asked her. There is my sister; and really quite her own little elegant figure!—and the face not unlike. I should have made a good likeness of her, if she would have sat longer, but she was in such a hurry to have me draw her four children that she would not be quiet. Then, here come all my attempts at three of those four children;—there they are, Henry and John and Bella, from one end of the sheet to the other, and any one of them might do for any one of the rest. She was so eager to have them drawn that I could not refuse; but there is no making children of three or four years old stand still you know; nor can it be very easy to take any likeness of them, beyond the air and complexion, unless they are coarser featured than any of mama's children ever were. Here is my sketch of the fourth, who was a baby. I took him as he was sleeping on the sofa, and it is as strong a likeness of his cockade as you would wish to see. He had nestled down his head most conveniently. That's very like. I am rather proud of little George. The corner of the sofa is very good. Then here is my last,”—unclosing a pretty sketch of a gentleman in small size, whole-length—“my last and my best—my brother, Mr. John Knightley.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

My master, continuing his discourse, said, “there was nothing that rendered the Yahoos more odious, than their undistinguishing appetite to devour every thing that came in their way, whether herbs, roots, berries, the corrupted flesh of animals, or all mingled together: and it was peculiar in their temper, that they were fonder of what they could get by rapine or stealth, at a greater distance, than much better food provided for them at home. If their prey held out, they would eat till they were ready to burst; after which, nature had pointed out to them a certain root that gave them a general evacuation.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)