[Move] Stealthily

In response to Prowl

Prowl synonyms: move stealthily, slink, skulk, sneak, stalk, creep, roam, rove, cruise, hunt….

Stealthily, like most adverbs, is a little awkward on the tongue. Writers tend to stick with the verb forms for that reason, and because it is always better for a character to act than to tell the reader how the character acts.

I love the inflection which differentiates prowl and moving stealthily (my, that is a mouthful! From now on, simply stealth). Both denote an objective, but for one the objective is hunting undetected, and the other simply to remain undetected, whether to hunt, observe, linger, or escape — or, in this case, do no more than move invisibly.

Stealth is an invisibility cloak, or camouflage, quiet movement, or disappearing into a crowd. It’s flying under the radar, whether physically, figuratively, emotionally or socially. Sometimes, it’s simply a matter of being still when prying eyes seek movement.

Stealth is the stuff of spies, war and games, of business and politics. Stealth is for the secretive, and those who would uncover secrets.

Stealth is a good word which, when whispered, seems to sneak up on you.

Though, uttering stealthily tends to give one away. 😉

Want to Play?

First, you can play any word offered by any post, or any comment, at any time. No deadlines.

To play the word in this post, pick a synonym from below. Now tell us what you picked in a comment. If you like, add a few words (or a bunch of words) about why you picked it. Or maybe use it to inspire a poem or micro-fiction or… well, anything you like.

Some [Move] Stealthily Synonyms:

slyly, secretly, covertly, surreptitiously, clandestinely, shrewdly, confidentially, slyly, sneakily… more synonyms

EZPZ, right?

Just … play nice. (Check out the conditions of play if you’re not sure what nice means. ;))

You can also play by replying to any of the comments other people post. Use a thesaurus to find a synonym for the word in the comment, and reply with that.

Advanced Play

Want to play the advanced game? Use your chosen synonym as inspiration to create a new blog post: words, images, sound, video … just about anything, really.

You can think of this game as a one-word creativity prompt. Rather than give you the one word, I’m giving you a list of synonyms to choose your one word from.

I’ll post new words … frequently. Probably not daily, but often. However, there’s no hourglass counting down the time you have left. Feel free to play any word at any time.

If you create something I think is really cool, I’ll ask if we can repost it here, as a new word for others to play.

Here are the rules.