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Furtive vs Shifty - What's the difference?

furtive | shifty | Synonyms |

Furtive is a synonym of shifty.


As adjectives the difference between furtive and shifty

is that furtive is stealthy while shifty is having the appearance of someone dishonest, criminal or unreliable; such as someone with shifty eyes .

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

    shifty

    English

    Adjective

    (er)
  • Having the appearance of someone dishonest, criminal or unreliable; such as someone with shifty eyes .
    • He was a shifty character in a seedy bar and I checked my wallet was still there after talking to him.
  • Subject to frequent changes in direction.
  • * 1971 , Henry Handel Richardson, Ultima Thule (page 121)
    • Off he raced, shuffling his bare feet through the hot, dry, shifty sand. But it was no good: she didn't care.
  • Full of, or ready with, shifts or expedients.
    • (Wright)
  • * Charles Kingsley
    • Shifty and thrifty as old Greek or modern Scot, there were few things he could not invent, and perhaps nothing he could not endure.