Word Confusion: Convert versus Covert

Plural for the noun: converts
Gerund: converting

Third person present verb: converts
Past tense or past participle: converted
Present participle: converting

Plural for the noun: coverts

Verb, intransitive:
Change or be able to change from one form to another

Change one’s religious faith or other beliefs

[American football] Advance the ball far enough during a down to earn a first down

• [American football] Score an extra point or points after having scored a touchdown by kicking a goal (one point) or running another play into the end zone (two points)

Verb, transitive:
Cause to change in form, character, or function

• Change (money, stocks, or units in which a quantity is expressed) into others of a different kind
• Adapt (a building) to make it suitable for a new purpose
• [Logic] Transpose the subject and predicate of (a proposition) according to certain rules to form a new proposition by inference

Persuade (someone) to change one’s religious faith or other beliefs

Score from (a penalty kick, pass, or other opportunity) in a sport or game

Covered or covered over

• Sheltered

[Law] Being married and therefore protected by one’s husband

Noun:
A thicket in which game can hide

A covering or cover

• A covered place or shelter
• Hiding place

[Ornithology; a.k.a. tectrix] Any of the small feathers covering the bases of the main flight or tail feathers of a bird

[Ornithology] A flock of coots

[Textiles] Short for covert cloth

The Church has thirty recent converts.

He is a convert to Islam.

Verb, intransitive:
The seating converts to a double or two single beds.

At sixteen he converted to Catholicism.

The Oilers converted on over half of their third downs.

Their try to convert is scored by kicking the ball through the uprights, the team gets an additional one point for their touchdown, bringing their total for that score from six points to seven.

Verb, transitive:
Our new production processes converted raw material into useful forms.

The figures have been converted at $0.545 to the Dutch guilder.

The space can be easily converted into a home office.

Full contraposition is obtained by converting the obvert of the original proposition.

He was engaged in converting people to Christianity.

They converted the ball through the uprights for that extra point to win the game.

We discovered covert military operations.

Covert funding for the rebels was a necessity.

“As we sat at the table, Otto Fuchs and I kept stealing covert glances at each other” (Cather).

“Because the alley will be long, and in great heat of the year, or day, you ought not to buy the shade in the Garden by going in the sun through the Green; therefore you are, of either side the Green, to plant a covert alley, upon carpenter’s work, about twelve foot in height, by which you may go in shade into the Garden” (Bacon).

“And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain” (Isaiah 4:6).

The covert protection of marriage is invalidated when a private communication is revealed to third parties, one spouse is suing the other, or when one spouse is charged with a crime against the other or their children.

Noun:
A covert of trees afforded privacy from the neighbors.

“No sooner had the King so spoken, than out from the covert at the roadside stepped a tall fellow with yellow beard and hair and a pair of merry blue eyes” (Pyle, chapt 21).

The brush provided a covert for game.

“Those on the upper (dorsal) surface of the body are called upper wing and upper tail coverts; those on the under (ventral) surface are called under wing and under tail coverts” (Feather).

We saw a covert of coots yesterday.

The classic covert coat, which is top-coat length, with a fly front and short lapel, is better for cycling around town on a Boris Bike than any fine worsted (Crompton).