by stealth

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by stealth

In an undetected way; silently and secretly. The cat burglar entered the office by stealth, and the only evidence he was there was the missing document. He's a huge guy, a former wrestler—I wouldn't ask him to do anything by stealth. A: "Can't you just go out by stealth after your parents have gone to bed?" B: "No, my mom somehow hears absolutely every noise in the house."
See also: by, stealth
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
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References in classic literature ?
Ney, who had had a corps of ten thousand men, reached Napoleon at Orsha with only one thousand men left, having abandoned all the rest and all his cannon, and having crossed the Dnieper at night by stealth at a wooded spot.
But those who take an interest in this tale, will be glad to learn that the BROTHERS CHEERYBLE live; that their liberal charity, their singleness of heart, their noble nature, and their unbounded benevolence, are no creations of the Author's brain; but are prompting every day (and oftenest by stealth) some munificent and generous deed in that town of which they are the pride and honour."
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.
A little disconcerted by this reception, Hugh looked from the secretary to Dennis, who had risen and was standing at the table too, observing the stranger by stealth, and seeming to derive the utmost satisfaction from his manners and appearance.
After all, she is only a snake and with a snake's nature, which is to keep low and squirm, and proceed by stealth and cunning.
The feud between the families dated from that tempest in the provincial teapot, and the surplus of votes on the wrong side was the reason why, thirty years after, Ursula had to meet her lover by stealth if she met him at all."
Nor did the striking of the clocks, hour after hour, appear to inspire him with any sense of drowsiness or any natural desire to go to rest, but rather to increase his wakefulness, which he showed, at every such indication of the progress of the night, by a suppressed cackling in his throat, and a motion of his shoulders, like one who laughs heartily but the same time slyly and by stealth.
By stealth, there had been there, in the darkness of the night, poor desolated creatures, who stole from their scanty hours' rest, that they might repay to him some of those ministrations of love in which he had always been so abundant.
There is my fatheranother of my fatherbut 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.
When I had begun to advance Herbert's prospects by Stealth, I had been able to bear this with cheerful philosophy; he and his affianced, for their part, had naturally not been very anxious to introduce a third person into their interviews; and thus, although I was assured that I had risen in Clara's esteem, and although the young lady and I had long regularly interchanged messages and remembrances by Herbert, I had never seen her.
Now, after the smelling out of the witch-doctors, Chaka caused a watch to be kept upon his mother Unandi, and his wife Baleka, my sister, and report was brought to him by those who watched, that the two women came to my huts by stealth, and there kissed and nursed a boy--one of my children.
So just as government by stealth is shown to apply to a vain attempt to meet the housing crisis, so what we have seen since the closure of the Redcar steelworks is the eventual ending of Britain's steelmaking capacity by stealth.
This instability is best embodied by STEALTH's compulsive invocation of the word wild.
We "the people" ara beginning to realise the whole truth and resent that it is being foisted on us by stealth (the stealthness of stealth taxes pale into insignificance when one recognises the enormity of the stealth used to slide us into onenation Europe).
HARDWORKING families are being hit by stealth taxes, the Labour Party claimed last night.