secret
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈsiː.kɹɪt/
note: weak vowel merger
ipa: /ˈsiː.kɹət/
ipa: /ˈsiː.kɹɛt/
rhymes: -iːkɹɪt
rhymes: -iːkɹət
rhymes: -iːkɹɛt
Forms: form: secrets
Etymology: The noun is from Middle English secret, from Latin sēcrētum. Doublet of secretum. Displaced Old English dēagolnes (“a secret”).
The verb is from the noun.
Senses: examples: text: "Can you keep a secret?" "Yes." "So can I."
text: 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
ref: May 1, 1750, Samuel Johnson, The Rambler No. 13
text: 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.
ref: 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:
text: 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.
ref: 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Citadel:
text: 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.
ref: 2013 June 14, Jonathan Freedland, “Obama's once hip brand is now tainted”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 1, page 18:
text: The storage of cryptographic secrets is one of the paramount requirements in building trustworthy systems.
ref: 2014, Thomas Feller, Trustworthy Reconfigurable Systems:
glosses: A piece of knowledge that is hidden and intended to be kept hidden.
examples: text: The secret to a long-lasting marriage is compromise.
glosses: The key or principle by which something is made clear; the knack.
examples: text: Thou knewſt by name, and all th' ethereal powers, / All ſecrets of the deep, all Natures works,
ref: 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:
glosses: Something not understood or known.
examples: text: The work was done in secret, so that nobody could object.
glosses: Private seclusion.
glosses: The genital organs.
glosses: A form of steel skullcap.
topics: Christianity
glosses: 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: dern
Derived terms: sense: Terms derived from secret (noun)
word: best-kept secret
sense: Terms derived from secret (noun)
word: in secret
sense: Terms derived from secret (noun)
word: make no secret of
sense: Terms derived from secret (noun)
word: open secret
sense: Terms derived from secret (noun)
word: secretist
sense: Terms derived from secret (noun)
word: secret of Polichinelle
sense: Terms derived from secret (noun)
word: secret sharing
sense: Terms derived from secret (noun)
word: secret squirrel
sense: Terms derived from secret (noun)
english: State secret
translation: State secret
word: state secret
sense: Terms derived from secret (noun)
word: top secret
sense: Terms derived from secret (noun)
word: trade secret
sense: Terms derived from secret (noun)
word: Victoria's Secret
sense: Terms derived from secret (noun)
word: worst-kept secret