under the radar

English

Etymology

An allusion to flying an airplane at an altitude too low for radar detection.

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Prepositional phrase

under the radar

1. (idiomatic) Without attracting notice; in an undetected or secretive manner.
   • 2004 August 30, Andrea Sachs, “About-Face”, in Time:

     Institutional change has not happened. But it's done quietly under the radar at lots of places.

   • 2022, Liam McIlvanney, The Heretic, page 48:

     Look, we keep our hand in with Maitland as well as this Partick thing. But we do it under the radar.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:covert

Derived terms

• fly under the radar
• slip under the radar

Translations

in an undetected or secretive manner

• Finnish: salaa (fi), piilossa (fi), katveessa (fi)
• French: sous les radars (fr)
• Hungarian: észrevétlenül (hu)
• Indonesian: diam-diam (id)
• Russian: под радаром (pod radarom)
• Swedish: under radarn

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Icelandic: ^{(please verify)} óséð