cover one's tracks
cover one's tracks verb: to conceal how one has arrived at a certain result or position.
Verb
cover one's tracks (third-person singular simple present covers one's tracks, present participle covering one's tracks, simple past and past participle covered one's tracks)
- To conceal how one has arrived at a certain result or position.
- C.I.E. Class "D14" 4-4-0 No. 89 covers its tracks with a magnificent smokescreen as it pulls out of Dun Laoghaire with the 9.0 a.m. boat train for Dublin. [in this case, railway tracks]1959 September, “Talking of Trains”, in Trains Illustrated, page 401, photo caption
- To conceal, hide or destroy evidence of one's actions or identity.
Forms of cover one's tracks
| third-person singular present | covers one's tracks |
|---|---|
| present participle | covering one's tracks |
| past participle | covered one's tracks |
| past | covered one's tracks |
Questions about cover one's tracks
- What does cover one's tracks mean?
- Cover one's tracks means to conceal how one has arrived at a certain result or position.
- What part of speech is cover one's tracks?
- Cover one's tracks is a verb.
- What is the past tense of cover one's tracks?
- The past tense of cover one's tracks is covered one's tracks.
Words near cover one's tracks in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: cover one's tracks (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “cover one's tracks.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cover_one%27s_tracks. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.