Meanings
- Marked by menacing furtive secrecy, often with a melodramatic tint or espionage involved.
Israel wages cloak-and-dagger war on Iran [headline]
2009 February 18, Philip Sherwell, Dina Kraft, “Israel wages cloak-and-dagger war on Iran”, in The Age1 more example
Two years after ordering the mass internment of German refugees at the start of the second world war, the British government put a small, elite group of them in military uniforms and sent them on a secret cloak-and-dagger mission to occupied Dieppe to snatch an Enigma coding machine from under the Nazis’ noses.
2021 May 9, Andrew Gumbel, “Raid on Dieppe masked secret mission to steal Nazis’ Enigma machine”, in The Guardian, →ISSNSynonyms: covert, clandestine, undercover, abstruse, behind the scenes, catlike, backroom, backstairs
Synonyms & antonyms
adjectiveMarked by menacing furtive secrecy, often with a melodramatic tint or espionage involved.
More synonyms by meaning
adjectiveconducted with or marked by hidden aims or methods
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Frenchde cape et d'épée“of the cloak and the sword”
- Englishcloak-and-dagger
Calque of French de cape et d'épée (“of the cloak and the sword”); first attested 1840. The French term referred to a genre of drama in which the main characters wore cloaks and had swords. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow used the “cloak and sword” term in 1840, whereas Charles Dickens preferred “cloak and dagger” a year later.
More words from French
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Bulgarian плащ и кинжал
- плащ и кинжал (plašt i kinžal)marked by menacing furtive secrecy
Finnish salamyhkäinen
- salamyhkäinenmarked by menacing furtive secrecy
French de cape et d’épée
- de cape et d’épéemarked by menacing furtive secrecy
German Mantel-und-Degen
- Mantel-und-Degenmarked by menacing furtive secrecy
Japanese 外套と短剣
- 外套と短剣 (gaitō to tanken)marked by menacing furtive secrecy
Polish potajemny
- potajemnymarked by menacing furtive secrecy
Spanish de intriga y misterio, de capa y espada
- de intriga y misteriomarked by menacing furtive secrecy
- de capa y espadamarked by menacing furtive secrecy
Cite this entry
cloak-and-dagger. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cloak-and-dagger
“cloak-and-dagger.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cloak-and-dagger. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “cloak-and-dagger,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/cloak-and-dagger.
Source: cloak-and-dagger on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.