Wiktionary
a. Conducted in secret; clandestine.
WordNet
adj. relating to the peripheral and unimportant aspects of life; "a hole-and-corner life in some obscure community"- H.G.Wells [syn: hole-in-corner]
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, cloak-and-dagger, hole-and-corner(a), hugger-mugger, hush-hush, on the quiet(p), secret, surreptitious, undercover, underground]
Usage examples of "hole-and-corner".
There is little hope and little strength in hole-and-corner bargainings between the officials or politicians who happen to be at the head of this or that nation for the time being.
The whole tangle of Baltic politics, of hole-and-corner hostilities and neutralities, was utterly beyond unravelling.