Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Wiktionary
a. Marked by menace furtive secrecy, often with a melodramatic tint or espionage involved.
WordNet
adj. conducted with or marked by hidden aims or methods; "clandestine intelligence operations"; "cloak-and-dagger activities behind enemy lines"; "hole-and-corner intrigue"; "secret missions"; "a secret agent"; "secret sales of arms"; "surreptitious mobilization of troops"; "an undercover investigation"; "underground resistance" [syn: clandestine, hole-and-corner(a), hugger-mugger, hush-hush, on the quiet(p), secret, surreptitious, undercover, underground]
Usage examples of "cloak-and-dagger".
Until the past few months Trav had never been much for cloak-and-dagger intrigue.
Flushed with the wine, enjoying playing her cloak-and-dagger part, she thought of the three other Pats who had been passed over.
They'd mix things up, visit the post offices at different times, use disguises, real cloak-and-dagger stuff.
It is reality television: CIC picks out one of their agents who is involved in a wet operation-doing some actual cloak-and-dagger work and has him put on a gargoyle rig so that everything he sees and hears is transmitted back to the home base in Langley.
It is reality television: CIC picks out one of their agents who is involved in a wet operation-doing some actual cloak-and-dagger work-ø.
I was beginning to get teed off at all this cloak-and-dagger stuff.
Maybe we were talking about a drug lab, financed by yuppies, run by dustheads, and now that we'd gotten into this cloak-and-dagger stuff, the upper echelons didn't know quite how to handle it.