incognito
/ˌɪnkɒɡˈniːtəʊ
/adjective & adverb
(Of a person) having one’s true identity concealed: [as adjective]: in order to observe you have to be incognito [as adverb]: he is now operating incognito...
- The road to perversion is cast with such anonymous faces, individuals incognito.
- With distinction and excellence writ large over their existence, even when they are forced to live incognito lives, their brilliance soon gives them away and the rest of the less endowed people are soon after their blood.
- With the president said to spend no more than one or two nights in the same place, to travel incognito and even to employ mustachioed, cigar-chomping lookalikes, this could prove easier said than done.
Synonyms
under an assumed name, under a false name, with one's identity concealed, in disguise, disguised, under cover, in plain clothes, camouflaged;
unrecognized, unidentified;
secretly, covertly, anonymously
informal incog
noun (plural incognitos)
An assumed or false identity: she is locked in her incognito...
- William thinks it's farcical and plays it up but amongst friends incognitos are simply unfunny bores.
- Leach is a minor character and the fact that Larsen effortlessly penetrated his incognito has no central plot significance.
- The incognito of lower class employment is an effective cloak for any dagger one might wish to hide.
Origin
Mid 17th century: from Italian, literally 'unknown', from Latin incognitus, from in- 'not' + cognitus (past participle of cognoscere 'know').
The word incognito, ‘having your true identity concealed’, came from Italian in the mid 17th century. The Latin root is cognoscere ‘to know’ (see also quaint). At first incognito could mean simply ‘unknown’, without any implication of disguise or concealment, and was used mainly of royals or dignitaries who did not want to be recognized. In the 20th century the theatre critic Kenneth Tynan (1927–80) wrote, ‘The disguise…renders him as effectively incognito as a walrus in a ballet-skirt’.