Secret - Wiktionary
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English
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]- IPA(key): /ˈsiː.kɹɪt/
Audio (General American): (file) Audio (US): (file) - (weak vowel merger) IPA(key): /ˈsiː.kɹət/
- (obsolete) IPA(key): /ˈsiː.kɹɛt/
- Hyphenation: se‧cret
- Rhymes: -iːkɹɪt, -iːkɹət, -iːkɹɛt
Etymology 1
[edit]The noun is from Middle English secret, from Latin sēcrētum.[1][2] Doublet of secretum. Displaced Old English dēagolnes (“a secret”).
The verb is from the noun.[3]
Noun
[edit]secret (countable and uncountable, plural secrets)
- (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.
- The key or principle by which something is made clear; the knack. The secret to a long-lasting marriage is compromise.
- Something not understood or known.
- 1667, John Milton, “Book X”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →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,
- (uncountable) Private seclusion. The work was done in secret, so that nobody could object.
- (archaic, in the plural) The genital organs.
- (historical) A form of steel skullcap.
- (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.
Synonyms
[edit]- dern
Derived terms
[edit] Terms derived from secret (noun)- best-kept secret
- in secret
- make no secret of
- nonsecret
- open secret
- pseudosecret
- secretist
- secretmonger
- secret of Polichinelle
- secret sharing
- secret squirrel
- state secret (State secret)
- subsecret
- supersecret
- top secret
- trade secret
- Victoria's Secret
- worst-kept secret
Descendants
[edit]- Pitcairn-Norfolk: siikret
Translations
[edit] knowledge that is hidden
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Verb
[edit]secret (third-person singular simple present secrets, present participle (US) secreting or (UK) secretting, simple past and past participle (US) secreted or (UK) secretted)
- (transitive, rare) 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.
- (transitive, rare) To hide secretly.
Usage notes
[edit]- The variant form secrete is now standard in this sense. Most dictionaries mark the form secret as 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 ambiguous, being formally identical to the corresponding forms of secrete.
Quotations
[edit]- For more quotations using this term, see Citations:secret.
Derived terms
[edit]- secrete
References
[edit]- “†ˈsecret, v.” listed in the Oxford English Dictionary [2nd 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.
Etymology 2
[edit]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,[4] from Proto-Indo-European *krey-.[5][6] Displaced Old English dēagol (“secret”).
Adjective
[edit]secret (comparative more secret, superlative most secret)
- 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.
- (obsolete) Withdrawn from general intercourse or notice; in retirement or secrecy; secluded.
- 1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →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.
- (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?
- (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.
Alternative forms
[edit]- secrette, secrete, secreat (obsolete)
Synonyms
[edit]- see Thesaurus:hidden and Thesaurus:covert
Antonyms
[edit]- overt
Derived terms
[edit] secret (adjective)- nonsecret
- secret admirer
- secret agent, secret agentry
- secret ballot
- secret chancellor
- secret code
- secret government
- secret handshake
- secret history
- secret ink
- secretive
- secret key
- secretly
- secret menu
- secretness
- secret partner
- secret police
- secret recipe
- secret-sacred (secret/sacred)
- secret Santa
- secret sauce
- secret service
- secret sharing
- secret shopper
- secret society
- secret sock
- secret squirrel
- secret vice
- secret weapon
- secret writing
- semisecretsupersecret
- state secret (State secret)
- top-secret
- ultrasecret
- unsecret
Related terms
[edit]- secrete
- secretion
Translations
[edit] being or kept hidden
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References
[edit]- ^ “sēcrē̆t, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
- ^ Douglas Harper (2001–2026), “secret (n.)”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
- ^ “secret, v.”, in OED Online
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000. - ^ George William Lemon. English etymology
- ^ [1]
- ^ [2]
Anagrams
[edit]- Cretes, certes, erects, resect, terces
Catalan
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Borrowed from Latin sēcrētus.
Pronunciation
[edit]- IPA(key): (Central) [səˈkɾet]
- IPA(key): (Balearic) [səˈkɾət]
- IPA(key): (Valencia) [seˈkɾet]
Audio (Barcelona): (file)
Adjective
[edit]secret (feminine secreta, masculine plural secrets, feminine plural secretes)
- secret
Derived terms
[edit]- secretament
- secretisme
Noun
[edit]secret m (plural secrets)
- secret
Derived terms
[edit]- en secret
Further reading
[edit]- “secret”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007
- “secret”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2026
- “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.
French
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]- IPA(key): /sə.kʁɛ/, (dated) /sə.ɡʁɛ/
Audio: (file) Audio (France (Toulouse)): (file)
Etymology 1
[edit]Inherited from Middle French secret, from Old French secret, borrowed from Latin secrētus.
Adjective
[edit]secret (feminine secrète, masculine plural secrets, feminine plural secrètes)
- secret admirateur secret ― (please add an English translation of this usage example) agent secret ― (please add an English translation of this usage example) botte secrète ― (please add an English translation of this usage example) code secret ― (please add an English translation of this usage example) jardin secret ― (please add an English translation of this usage example) service secret ― (please add an English translation of this usage example)
Etymology 2
[edit]Inherited from Old French secret, borrowed from Latin secrētum.
Noun
[edit]secret m (plural secrets)
- secret Il n'y a pas de secret. ― There's no magic formula to it. (literally, “There is no secret.”)
- secrecy dans le plus grand secret ― in (the) utmost secrecy
Derived terms
[edit]- mettre au secret
- ne plus avoir de secret
- secret d'alcôve
- secret de Polichinelle
- secret d'État
- secret industriel
- secret médical
- secret professionnel
Descendants
[edit]- → Romanian: secret
Further reading
[edit]- “secret”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012
Anagrams
[edit]- certes, crêtes, terces
Middle French
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Old French secret.
Adjective
[edit]secret m (feminine singular secrete, masculine plural secrets, feminine plural secretes)
- secret
Descendants
[edit]- French: secret
- → Romanian: secret
Romanian
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Borrowed from French secret, Latin secretum, secretus. Doublet of săcret.
Pronunciation
[edit]- IPA(key): /seˈkret/
Audio: (file)
Noun
[edit]secret n (plural secrete)
- secret Synonym: taină
Declension
[edit]| singular | plural | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| indefinite | definite | indefinite | definite | |
| nominative-accusative | secret | secretul | secrete | secretele |
| genitive-dative | secret | secretului | secrete | secretelor |
| vocative | secretule | secretelor | ||
Adjective
[edit]secret m or n (feminine singular secretă, masculine plural secreți, feminine/neuter plural secrete)
- secret, hidden Synonyms: tainic, ascuns
Declension
[edit]| singular | plural | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| masculine | neuter | feminine | masculine | neuter | feminine | ||
| nominative-accusative | indefinite | secret | secretă | secreți | secrete | ||
| definite | secretul | secreta | secreții | secretele | |||
| genitive-dative | indefinite | secret | secrete | secreți | secrete | ||
| definite | secretului | secretei | secreților | secretelor | |||
Related terms
[edit]- săcret
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