From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishthinly disguised/veiledthinly disguised/veiledBAD ATif something is thinly disguised etc, someone is pretending it is something else, but you can easily see what it really is He looked at Frank’s new car with thinly veiled envy. → thinly
Examples from the Corpus
thinly disguised/veiled• Both, however, were under external threat from barbarians more or less thinly disguised.• Hardly compatible with discretion, that I should ride to the Palace in so thinly disguised a vehicle.• Almost all his climbs have a certain something: a thinly disguised air of intimidation often allied to a raw brutality.• She was only thinly veiled, and Rostov could see that although she was beautiful, she was old.• Mostly they turned out to be thinly disguised candidate ads, a violation of the spirit of the law at best.• Dole passed up two thinly veiled invitations by moderator Jim Lehrer to address so-called character issues.• I should hate to give the impression that my love for you is but thinly disguised lust.• Mrs Thatcher's public speeches contained thinly veiled warning messages to colleagues who doubted the strategy. 