How to Use under the table in a Sentence

under the table

1 of 2 phrase

• Instead, her dad looks under the table and sees a jumble of limbs with Chastain’s smiling face poking out at him.
  — Jason P. Frank, Vulture, 21 July 2026
• The prospect of holding dry, cracked hands after dinner might persuade him that moisturizing under the table is the lesser offense.
  — Judith Martin, Mercury News, 4 July 2026
• Finally, a mystical Rabbi arrives and shocks the king and queen by taking off all his clothing, getting under the table and crowing like a rooster.
  — Josh Penn Soskin, Variety, 16 July 2026
• Medical and dental care itself remains closed off to the private sector, even though paying for crowns, fillings and medical procedures under the table has become routine in the public health system.
  — Nora Gámez Torres, Miami Herald, 4 Aug. 2026
• Joseph Stalin—the Soviet Union’s supreme ruler from 1929 to 1953 and a murderous tyrant legendary for drinking friends and enemies under the table—was a closet oenophile, the e-mail explained.
  — Frankie Mills, Air Mail, 27 June 2026

under-the-table

2 of 2 adjective

• The old days of under-the-table cash payments to high school stars or secret gifts to their parents were over.
  — David Waldstein, New York Times, 27 Mar. 2025
• All of the under-the-table deals are out in the open, generally speaking, and folks are upset.
  — Troy Renck, Denver Post, 18 July 2025
• Garcia transmitted the cash in four installments and charged an under-the-table fee of $50 for each wire.
  — Jason Green, The Mercury News, 18 Jan. 2025
• While migrants wait, many rely on public resources or take low-paying and unreliable, under-the-table gigs.
  — Hillary Chura, The Christian Science Monitor, 9 Jan. 2024
• Transparency is certainly better than the open secret of under-the-table payments.
  — Steven P. Dinkin, San Diego Union-Tribune, 2 Apr. 2023
• In contrast, a home office makes the window for such under-the-table information exchanges elusive.
  — Gleb Tsipursky, Fortune, 18 July 2023
• Throughout high school, Ward honed in on dancing, booking under-the-table gigs and teaching classes to earn extra money.
  — Cydney Lee, Billboard, 13 Mar. 2023
• Making tips explicitly tax free will help with this, and will also remove the stigma that has been associated with tips as under-the-table income.
  — Joe Moglia, Forbes, 11 Oct. 2024
• Fewer than 10% of Syrian adults have work permits, with the rest being limited to informal, under-the-table jobs.
  — Scott McLean, CNN, 24 July 2024
• But fast forward a few years those student-athletes no longer worry about being penalized for accepting under-the-table envelopes of cash from university boosters.
  — Andrea Williams, The Tennessean, 2 July 2025
• The Timberwolves were punished so drastically because all sides put the under-the-table arrangement in writing, making the evidence clear.
  — Eric Nehm, New York Times, 16 July 2026
• Migrant child labor benefits both under-the-table operations and global corporations, the Times found.
  — Hannah Dreier, BostonGlobe.com, 25 Feb. 2023
• The slimy ne’er-do-well Timo (Steven Yeun), who roped Mickey into the loan-shark snafu and had the same idea to run away into space, can’t stop making under-the-table deals.
  — Shirley Li, The Atlantic, 7 Mar. 2025
• Migrant child labor benefits both under-the-table operations and global corporations, The Times found.
  — Photographs Kirsten Luce, New York Times, 25 Feb. 2023
• Jim Larrañaga could handle—and repeatedly thrived—in the old college sports system, where athletes could only get paid under-the-table, even if that meant the Feds might subpoena his text messages.
  — Daniel Libit, Sportico.com, 26 Dec. 2024
• As alluded to previously, many athletes accepted under-the-table payments from schools (and their partners) who knew their contributions have a meaningful impact on their (and their partners’) bottom line.
  — Nick Lomaglio, Forbes.com, 29 Aug. 2025
• The most common job for these children is under-the-table work in roofing and construction, according to teachers, social workers, labor organizers and federal investigators.
  — Hannah Dreier, New York Times, 14 Dec. 2023
• The trade comes less than a year after allegations surfaced connecting Leonard, the Clippers and an under-the-table deal with environmental company Aspiration.
  — Law Murray, New York Times, 9 July 2026
• The most similar case of salary cap circumvention occurred when the Minnesota Timberwolves lost three first-round picks after their under-the-table agreement with Joe Smith in 1999.
  — Eric Nehm, New York Times, 16 July 2026
• The corruption trial kicked off in 2020, with prosecutors accusing Netanyahu of exchanging regulatory favors for positive press coverage in under-the-table dealings with media moguls.
  — Anders Hagstrom, Fox News, 29 Dec. 2024
• In 2018, after media accounts revealed one such donor’s under-the-table contributions to an Australian senator—who then provided countersurveillance advice to the Chinese donor—the senator was forced to resign his seat.
  — Philip Zelikow, Foreign Affairs, 9 June 2020
• But while that under-the-table approach by Israel towards Hamas came crashing down with the October 7, 2023 attacks, concern still lingers in Ramallah, the headquarters of the PA , that the new technocratic committee could be another way to divide Palestinians by creating rival centers of power.
  — Andrew Carey, CNN Money, 18 Jan. 2026