Undercover Meaning
/ˌʌndə(ɹ)ˈkʌvə(ɹ)/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
adjPerformed or happening in secret.
adjEmployed or engaged in spying or secret investigation.
Sentence Examples
An undercover operative infiltrated the organization.
He was caught by an undercover police officer.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
None
CEFR Practice Quiz
The detective pretended to be a criminal while working ____ for the police.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The police officer spent several months working ____ to gather enough evidence to arrest the members of the gang today.
Word Origin & History
From under + cover.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"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.""
— 1990 December 16, Gianni Comes, “Not Just Homophobia”, in Gay Community News, volume 18, number 22, page 4:
"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."
— 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:
"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."
— 2004, Gary Orfield, Dropouts in America: confronting the graduation rate crisis, page 116:
Explore More B2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The detective pretended to be a criminal while working ____ for the police.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The police officer spent several months working ____ to gather enough evidence to arrest the members of the gang today.