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To take away by violence or by stealth; to snatch away; to rob; to despoil; to bereave. [Archaic]. "To reave his life." Spenser. He golden apples raft of the dragon. Chaucer. By privy stratagem my life at home. Chapman. To reave the orphan of his patrimony. Shak. The heaven caught and reft him of his tongue. Tennyson.…

To act in a stealthy and cowardly manner; to behave with meanness and servility; to crouch.

To walk slowly and cautiously; to walk in a stealthy, noiseless manner; -- sometimes used with a reflexive pronoun. Shak. Into the chamber he stalked him full still. Chaucer. [Bertran] stalks close behind her, like a witch's fiend, Pressing to be employed. Dryden.

The act or process of getting in a surreptitious manner, or by craft or stealth. Fame by surreption got May stead us for the time, but lasteth not. B. Jonson.

Done or made by stealth, or without proper authority; made or introduced fraudulently; clandestine; stealthy; as, a surreptitious passage in an old manuscript; a surreptitious removal of goods. -- Sur`rep*ti"tious*ly, adv.

Like a thief; acting by stealth; sly; secret. Time's thievish progress to eternity. Shak.

One of an association of robbers and murderers in India who practiced murder by stealthy approaches, and from religious motives. They have been nearly exterminated by the British government.

The practice of secret or stealthy murder by Thugs. "One of the suppressors of Thuggee." J. D. Hooker.

Noiseless; stealthy. "With tiptoe step." Cowper. Tiptoe mirth, the highest degree of mirth. Sir W. Scott.

also soft grass. -- Velvet runner (Zoöl.), the water rail; -- so called from its quiet, stealthy manner of running. [Prov. Eng.] -- Velvet scoter. (Zoöl.) Same as Velvet duck, above. -- Velvet sponge. (Zoöl.) See under Sponge.