Word.ws English Dictionary

under the table

under the table prepositional phrase: secret; covert; undisclosed.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (adjectival) Secret; covert; undisclosed.
  2. (adverbial) Secretly; covertly; undisclosedly.
    • I was paid under the table, so I didn't have to pay taxes on the income but I couldn't complain when I was cheated.
    • The men tie up their dogs, retrieve what’s left of the lion’s kill, and sprinkle it with a generic form of Furadan, a cheap, fast-acting pesticide that’s readily available under the table.2015, Elizabeth Royte, Vultures Are Revolting. Here’s Why We Need to Save Them., National Geographic (December 2015)https://web.archive.org/web/20151213095110/http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2016/01...
  3. In or into a state of stupification or boredom.
  4. In or into a state of drunkenness.
  5. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see under, table.

Synonyms of under the table

Forms of under the table

alternative formunder-the-table

Questions about under the table

What does under the table mean?
Under the table means secret; covert; undisclosed.
What part of speech is under the table?
Under the table is a prepositional phrase.

Words near under the table in the dictionary

  1. under the sheets
  2. under the spotlight
  3. under the stars
  4. under the sun
  5. under the surface
  6. under the table
  7. under the weather
  8. under the wire
  9. under the yoke
  10. under tow
  11. under water

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: under the table (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.

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Cite this entry: “under the table.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/under_the_table. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.