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Furtive vs Abscond - What's the difference?

furtive | abscond |

As an adjective furtive

is stealthy.

As a verb abscond is

(intransitive|reflexive|archaic) to hide, to be in hiding or concealment.

furtive

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • stealthy
  • Exhibiting guilty or evasive secrecy.
  • * 1949 , George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four , p31
    • But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control.

    Synonyms

    * (stealthy) surreptitious * See also

    Derived terms

    * furtively * furtiveness

    abscond

    English

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (intransitive, reflexive, archaic) To hide, to be in hiding or concealment.
  • * 1691-1735 , (John Ray), The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation [http://books.google.com/books?id=rRI5AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA300&dq=intitle:works+of+creation+inauthor:ray&hl=en&sa=X&ei=mpnNUZHMJ4Pu0gGZo4GICw&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAA#v=snippet&q=absconds&f=false]
    • the Marmotto , live upon its own Fat.
  • (reflexive) To flee, often secretly; to steal away, particularly to avoid arrest or prosecution.
  • * 1848 , (Thomas Babington Macaulay), , Ch. 13
    • ... that very homesickness which, in regular armies, drives so many recruits to abscond at the risk of stripes and of death.
  • * 1911 , (Ambrose Bierce), (w, The Devil's Dictionary)
    • Spring beckons! All things to the call respond;
    The trees are leaving and cashiers abscond .
  • To withdraw from.
  • * 2006 , Richard Rojcewicz, The Gods And Technology: A Reading Of Heidegger , ISBN 0791482308.
    • Modern technology accompanies the absconding of the original attitude.
  • * 2009 , Sonia Brill, Relationships Without Anger , ISBN 144902789X.
    • You cannot abscond from the responsibility both you and your partner owe to this event, and that includes dealing with anger issues and any other emotional issues that come with it.
  • (obsolete) To conceal; to take away.
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  • (label) To evade, to hide or flee from.
    • The captain absconded his responsibility
  • * 2006 , Aldo E. Chircop, Olof Lindén, Places of Refuge for Ships , ISBN 900414952X.
    • If the distress situation is solved succesfully, the anonymous shipowner will reap the commercial benefit, if the situation ends in disaster, the shipowner will hide behind an anonymous post box in a foreign country and will abscond responsibility.
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    • References

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