Overt means done openly, with nothing hidden. Overt hostility, an overt threat, overt discrimination.
It is the opposite of covert and the pair is used constantly in intelligence and in law: overt acts are the visible ones a conspiracy charge needs. In discrimination, overt is contrasted with subtle rather than with secret. Note that the word comes from the French for opened, from ouvrir.
1adjectiveovertDone openly, with nothing hidden.
“There was no overt hostility, but we could tell they didn't want us there.”
synonyms: open, undisguised
overt is a quality of openness.
Old French overt means opened, the past participle of ovrir, to open, from Latin aperire. Aperture comes from the same opening.
Old French
overt
Middle French
ouvert
Anglo-Norman
overt
Middle English
overt
English, today
overt
Built from
From Middle English overt, uverte (“open, uncovered; unfastened; accessible, unobstructed; clear, manifest”), from Anglo-Norman overt, Middle French ouvert, Old French overt, ouvert, uvert (“opened”) (modern French ouvert), past participle of Anglo-Norman -, Old French ovrir, ouvrir, uvrir (“to open”), from Latin operire, variant of Latin aperīre (“to open”), from aperiō (“to open, uncover”), from Proto-Indo-European h₂epó (“away; from”) + h₂wer- (“to cover, shut”). The English word is a a doublet of apert and ouvert.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA