secret

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

Displaced native Middle English diȝel "secret" (from Old English dīegol "secret"), Middle English derne, deorne "dark, hidden, secret" (from Old English dierne "dark, hidden, secret"), Middle English roune, rowne "secret, secret counsel" (from Old English rūn), Middle English hidel "secrecy, secret" (from Old English hȳdels "hiding-stow").

• IPA^(key): /ˈsiːkɹɪt/
• (weak vowel merger) IPA^(key): /ˈsiːkɹət/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: se‧cret

secret (countable and uncountable, plural secrets)

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

   Can you keep a secret? So can I.

   • Rambler

     To tell our secrets is often folly; to communicate those of others is treachery.

   • 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.
   • Milton

     All secrets of the deep, all nature's 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 Mass, immediately following the "orate, fratres", said inaudibly by the celebrant.

• dern

• Pitcairn-Norfolk: siikret
• → Cebuano: sekret

secret (comparative more secret, superlative most secret)

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

   We went down a secret passage.

   • Bible, Deuteronomy xxix. 29

     The secret things belong unto the Lord our God; but those things which are revealed belong unto us.

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 1, in The China Governess‎:

     The original family who had begun to build a palace to rival 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.
   • 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I, 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:

   • Fenton

     secret in her sapphire cell

   • Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped

     “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.
   • Shakespeare

     Secret Romans, that have spoke the word, / And will not palter.

4. (obsolete) Separate; distinct.
   • Cudworth

     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 examples of usage of 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

From Latin secretus.

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

1. secret

secret m (plural secrets)

1. secret

• IPA^(key): /sə.kʁɛ/

• audio

  (file)

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

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

1. secret

From Old French secret, borrowed from Latin secrētum.

secret m (plural secrets)

1. secret

• → Romanian: secret

• certes, crêtes, terces

• “secret” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

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, which was inherited.

• IPA^(key): /seˈkret/

secret n (plural secrete)

1. secret

• taină

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

1. secret, hidden

• tainic, ascuns

• săcret