secret

From Middle English secrette, from Old French secret, from Latin sēcrētus (“separated, hidden”), from ptp of sēcernō (“separate, to set aside, sunder out”), from cernō,[1] from Proto-Indo-European *krey-.[2][3] Displaced Old English dēagol (“secret”) and dēagolnes (“a secret”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈsiːkɹɪt/

• Audio (US)

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• (weak vowel merger) IPA^(key): /ˈsiːkɹət/
• (obsolete) IPA^(key): /ˈsiːkɹɛt/
• Hyphenation: se‧cret
• Rhymes: -iːkɹɪt, -iːkɹət, -iːkɹɛt

secret (countable and uncountable, plural secrets)

1. (countable) A piece of knowledge that is hidden and intended to be kept hidden. [from late 14th c.]

   "Can you keep a secret?" "Yes." "So can I."

   • May 1 , 1750, Samuel Johnson, The Rambler No. 13

     To tell our own secrets is generally folly, but that folly is without guilt; to communicate those with which we are intrusted is always treachery

   • 1822 May 29, [Walter Scott], chapter VIII, in The Fortunes of Nigel. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC, page 216:

     Well, mistress, I am sorry this is a matter I cannot aid you in—it goes against my conscience, and it is an affair above my condition, and beyond my management;—but I will keep your secret.

   • 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Citadel:

     Barla Von: Most people think I deal in finances, but my real currency is knowledge. I trade information and it has made me very wealthy.
     Barla Von: But the Shadow Broker is the true master. Every day, he buys and sells secrets that could topple governments, always giving them to the highest bidder.

   • 2013 June 14, Jonathan Freedland, “Obama's once hip brand is now tainted”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 1, page 18:

     Now we are liberal with our innermost secrets, spraying them into the public ether with a generosity our forebears could not have imagined. Where we once sent love letters in a sealed envelope, or stuck photographs of our children in a family album, now such private material is despatched to servers and clouds operated by people we don't know and will never meet.

   • 2014, Thomas Feller, Trustworthy Reconfigurable Systems:

     The storage of cryptographic secrets is one of the paramount requirements in building trustworthy systems.

2. The key or principle by which something is made clear; the knack.

   The secret to a long-lasting marriage is compromise.

3. Something not understood or known.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book X”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 1468–1469:

     Thou knewſt by name, and all th' ethereal powers, / All ſecrets of the deep, all Natures works,

4. (uncountable) Private seclusion.

   The work was done in secret, so that nobody could object.

5. (archaic, in the plural) The genital organs.
6. (historical) A form of steel skullcap.
7. (Christianity, often in the plural) Any prayer spoken inaudibly and not aloud; especially, one of the prayers in the Tridentine Mass, immediately following the "orate, fratres", said inaudibly by the celebrant.

• dern

• Pitcairn-Norfolk: siikret

secret (comparative more secret, superlative most secret)

1. Being or kept hidden. [from late 14th c.]

   We went down a secret passage.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Deuteronomy 29:29:

     The ſecret things belong unto the Lord our God; but thoſe things which are reuealed belong unto us, and to our children for euer, that wee may doe all the words of this Law.

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, “The Elopers”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 25:

     The original family who had begun to build a palace to outrival Nonesuch had died out before they had put up little more than the gateway, so that the actual structure which had come down to posterity retained the secret magic of a promise rather than the overpowering splendour of a great architectural achievement.

2. (obsolete) Withdrawn from general intercourse or notice; in retirement or secrecy; secluded.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 6–10:

     Sing Heav'nly Muſe, that on the secret top / Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didſt inſpire / That Shepherd, who firſt taught the choſen Seed, / In the Beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth / Roſe out of Chaos: [...]

   • 1716, Elijah Fenton, an ode to the Right Honourable John Lord Gower:

     secret in her sapphire cell

   • 1886 May 1 – July 31, Robert Louis Stevenson, “I Make Acquaintance of My Uncle”, in Kidnapped, being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: […], London, Paris: Cassell & Company, published 1886, →OCLC, page 19:

     "He was a secret man, Alexander—a secret, silent man," he continued.

3. (obsolete) Faithful to a secret; not inclined to divulge or betray confidence; secretive, separate, apart.
   • 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i], page 115, column 1:

     What neede we any ſpurre, but our owne cauſe / To pricke vs to redreſſe? What other Bond / Than ſecret Romans, that haue ſpoke the Word, / And will not palter?

4. (obsolete) Separate; distinct.
   • 1678, Ralph Cudworth, The True Intellectual System of the Universe:

     They suppose two other divine hypostases superior thereunto, which were perfectly secret from matter.

• secrette (obsolete)

• see Thesaurus:hidden and Thesaurus:covert

• overt

• secrete
• secretion

secret (third-person singular simple present secrets, present participle (UK) secretting or (US) secreting, simple past and past participle (UK) secretted or (US) secreted)

1. (transitive) To make or keep secret. [from late 16th c.]
   • 1984, Peter Scott Lawrence, Around the mulberry tree, Firefly Books, p. 26

     [...] she would unfold the silk, press it with a smooth wooden block that she'd heated in the oven, and then once more secret it away.

   • 1986, InfoWorld, InfoWorld Media Group, Inc.

     Diskless workstations [...] make it difficult for individuals to copy information [...] onto a diskette and secret it away.

   • 1994, Phyllis Granoff & Koichi Shinohara, Monks and magicians: religious biographies in Asia, Mosaic Press, p. 50

     To prevent the elixir from reaching mankind and thereby upsetting the balance of the universe, two gods secret it away.

2. (transitive) To hide secretly.

   He was so scared for his safety he secreted arms around the house.

• All other dictionaries label this sense 'obsolete', but the citations above and on the citations page demonstrate recent usage as part of the idiom "secret [something] away".
• The present participle and past forms secreting and secreted are liable to confusion with the corresponding heteronymous forms of the similar verb secrete.

• For more quotations using this term, see Citations:secret.

• secrete

• “†ˈsecret, v.” listed in the Oxford English Dictionary [2^nd Ed.; 1989]
  Tagged as obsolete. Notes: “In the inflected forms it is not easy to distinguish between ˈsecret and secrete v.”
• “Se"cret (?), v. t.” listed on page 1,301 of Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
  Se"cret (?), v. t. To keep secret. [Obs.] Bacon.

• Cretes, certes, erects, resect, terces

Borrowed from Latin sēcrētus.

• IPA^(key): (Central) [səˈkɾet]
• IPA^(key): (Balearic) [səˈkɾət]
• IPA^(key): (Valencian) [seˈkɾet]

secret (feminine secreta, masculine plural secrets, feminine plural secretes)

1. secret

• secretament
• secretisme

secret m (plural secrets)

1. secret

• en secret

• “secret” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “secret”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2024
• “secret” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “secret” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

• IPA^(key): /sə.kʁɛ/, (dated) /sə.ɡʁɛ/

• audio

  (file)

Inherited from Middle French secret, from Old French secret, borrowed from Latin secrētus.

secret (feminine secrète, masculine plural secrets, feminine plural secrètes)

1. secret

Inherited from Old French secret, borrowed from Latin secrētum.

secret m (plural secrets)

1. secret
2. secrecy

• → Romanian: secret

• “secret”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• certes, crêtes, terces

From Old French secret.

secret m (feminine singular secrete, masculine plural secrets, feminine plural secretes)

1. secret

• French: secret
  • → Romanian: secret

Borrowed from French secret, Latin secretum, secretus. Doublet of săcret.

• IPA^(key): /seˈkret/

• Audio

  (file)

secret n (plural secrete)

1. secret

   Synonym: taină

secret m or n (feminine singular secretă, masculine plural secreți, feminine and neuter plural secrete)

1. secret, hidden

   Synonyms: tainic, ascuns

• săcret