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secretness

 - 2 dictionary results

se⋅cret

[see-krit]
–adjective
1. done, made, or conducted without the knowledge of others: secret negotiations.
2. kept from the knowledge of any but the initiated or privileged: a secret password.
3. faithful or cautious in keeping confidential matters confidential; close-mouthed; reticent.
4. designed or working to escape notice, knowledge, or observation: a secret drawer; the secret police.
5. secluded, sheltered, or withdrawn: a secret hiding place.
6. beyond ordinary human understanding; esoteric.
7. (of information, a document, etc.)
a. bearing the classification secret.
b. limited to persons authorized to use information documents, etc., so classified.
–noun
8. something that is or is kept secret, hidden, or concealed.
9. a mystery: the secrets of nature.
10. a reason or explanation not immediately or generally apparent.
11. a method, formula, plan, etc., known only to the initiated or the few: the secret of happiness; a trade secret.
12. a classification assigned to information, a document, etc., considered less vital to security than top-secret but more vital than confidential, and limiting its use to persons who have been cleared, as by various government agencies, as trustworthy to handle such material. Compare classification (def. 5).
13. (initial capital letter) Liturgy. a variable prayer in the Roman and other Latin liturgies, said inaudibly by the celebrant after the offertory and immediately before the preface.
14. in secret, unknown to others; in private; secretly: A resistance movement was already being organized in secret.

Origin:
1350–1400; ME secrette < OF secret < L sēcrētus hidden, orig. ptp. of sēcernere to secern


se⋅cret⋅ly, adverb
se⋅cret⋅ness, noun


1. clandestine, hidden, concealed, covert. 1, 2. private, confidential. 3. secretive. 6. occult, obscure, mysterious.


1. open, manifest.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Word Origin & History

secret 
1378 (n.), 1399 (adj.), from L. secretus "set apart, withdrawn, hidden," originally pp. of secernere "to set apart," from se- "without, apart," prop. “on one's own” (from PIE *sed-, from base *s(w)e-; see idiom) + cernere "separate" (see crisis). The verb meaning "to keep secret" (described in OED as "obsolete") is attested from 1595. Secretive is attested from 1853. Secret agent first recorded 1715; secret service is from 1737; secret weapon is from 1936.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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