concealed

1. 1
   adjective

   Kept hidden from view or notice; deliberately placed out of sight.

   Detectives discovered a concealed compartment built into the antique desk.

   The fortress relied on concealed passages to move soldiers without being seen.

   Similarhidden, secret, covert, disguised, camouflaged

   Oppositevisible, exposed, open, revealed

   Note

   Unlike many participles that have become adjectives, this one grades, because a thing can be more or less hidden. Thomas de Quincey writes in 1862 of something hidden "after a very concealed manner". David Stea and Mete Turan, in Placemaking (2024), rank underground settlements such as Derinkuyu as "the most concealed dwelling type." Its comparison is formed with more and most, not with -er and -est.

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of conceal.

   The smuggler concealed the documents inside a hollow book.

   For years the company concealed the true cost of the project.

   Note

   A regular past form, spelled the same for the simple past and the participle: the smuggler concealed the papers; the papers had been concealed. Because conceal is transitive, it needs an object in the active and turns passive easily. Once the participle settles before a noun, as in a concealed door, it shades into the adjective meaning 'hidden'.

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