hole-and-corner
Americanadjective
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secretive; clandestine; furtive.
The political situation was full of hole-and-corner intrigue.
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trivial and colorless.
She was living a hole-and-corner existence of daily drudgery.
adjective
Etymology
Origin of hole-and-corner
First recorded in 1825–35
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The oxygen mask wall continue to put a new face on the secret agent of tradition, marking his release from the hole-and-corner, back-alley deals of history.
From Time Magazine Archive
Said one American: "Has an international document ever been ratified in such a hole-and-corner fashion?"
From Time Magazine Archive
You can say or print almost anything so long as you are willing to do it in a hole-and-corner way.
From Time Magazine Archive
All her life she had been accustomed to be left in the charge of strangers while Francis Agnew went about his business of hole-and-corner diplomacy.
From The White Plumes of Navarre A Romance of the Wars of Religion by Crockett, S. R. (Samuel Rutherford)
And yet, as methinks, it should be a strange case wherein a true man should not go boldly and honestly to the maid’s father, and ask her of him, with no hole-and-corner work.
From Joyce Morrell's Harvest The Annals of Selwick Hall by Holt, Emily Sarah
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
