English

Alternative forms

• stay behind

Noun

stay-behind ‎(plural stay-behinds)

1. One who remains when expected to leave or after others have left.
   • 1988, Robert L. Barnard, Intrusion Detection Systems, page 46,

     In areas where stay-behinds could be a threat, however, motion detectors should be used.

   • 1996, Dick Stapert, Lykke Johansen, Ring & Sector Analysis, and Site ‘IT’ on Greenland, Palaeohistoria, Volumes 37-38, page 60,

     The stay-behinds then tend to move out of the house into a tent. This might have been the case at IT.

   • 2006, Steven Mithen, After the Ice: A Global Human History, 20,000-5000 BC, page 44,

     But the image to remember is of a few families enjoying a day within the forest steppe - away from the barking dogs, the smelly rubbish heaps, the grumpy stay-behinds of their village.

2. (military) An agent who lives in a foreign country, and can be activated in certain circumstances.
   • a. 2000, Sam Halpern, Quoted in 2000, James Srodes, Allen Dulles: Master of Spies, page 545,

     Bobby Kennedy believed the Mafia had lots of interests in and people in Cuba; he was absolutely convinced that they had left stay-behinds in Cuba and all they had to do was tap into those stay-behinds.

   • 2003, Bradley O'Leary, L. E. Seymour, Triangle of Death, unnumbered page,

     Diem chose instead to use his military forces and police to capture and kill the Viet Minh “stay-behinds,” even though these actually posed little or no threat to the country, since a good share of them were simply not Communists and those that had been had either recanted in favor of the Diem government or returned to the north.

   • 2011, David MacGregor, Update: September 11 as “Macchiavellian State Terror”, Paul Zarembka (editor), The Hidden History of 9/11, unnumbered page,

     Ganser closely documents activities of “stay-behinds” in 14 western nations — spies and agents with Nazi and Fascist backgrounds, secretly installed by NATO following the Second World War to counter a supposed Soviet threat.

See also

• sleeper
• sleeper cell