SECRET • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Secret

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/sˈikrət/ /sˈikrɪt/ Listen

Secret

adjective

1.

Not open or public; kept private or not revealed. "Secret ingredients" , "Secret talks"

2.

Conducted with or marked by hidden aims or methods. Synonyms: clandestine, cloak-and-dagger, hole-and-corner, hugger-mugger, hush-hush, surreptitious, undercover, underground. "Cloak-and-dagger activities behind enemy lines" , "Hole-and-corner intrigue" , "Secret missions" , "A secret agent" , "Secret sales of arms" , "Surreptitious mobilization of troops" , "An undercover investigation" , "Underground resistance"

3.

Not openly made known. Synonym: unavowed. "A secret bride"

4.

Communicated covertly. "Secret messages"

5.

Not expressed. Synonym: private.

6.

Designed to elude detection. Synonym: hidden. "A secret passage" , "The secret compartment in the desk"

7.

Hidden from general view or use. Synonyms: privy, secluded. "A secluded romantic spot" , "A secret garden"

8.

(of information) given in confidence or in secret. Synonym: confidential. "Their secret communications"

9.

Indulging only covertly.

10.

Having an import not apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence; beyond ordinary understanding. Synonyms: mysterious, mystic, mystical, occult, orphic. "The mystical style of Blake" , "Occult lore" , "The secret learning of the ancients"

11.

The next to highest level of official classification for documents.

noun

1.

Something that should remain hidden from others (especially information that is not to be passed on). "He tried to keep his drinking a secret"

2.

Information known only to a special group. Synonym: arcanum.

3.

Something that baffles understanding and cannot be explained. Synonyms: closed book, enigma, mystery. "It remains one of nature's secrets"

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WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University

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"Secret" Quotes from Famous Books

... was for those single private soldiers, each real, each existent, while the Army which they made up and of whose "destruction" men spoke, was but a number, a notion, a name. He would have pestered me, if my mind had still been active, as to what their secret destinies were who lay, each man alone, twisted round the guns after the failure to hold the Bridge of the Beresina. He might have gone deeper, but I was too tired to listen ...

— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc

... been so bad if you had gloated openly when you put one over on me, but your devilish way of apparently ignoring the fact—of acting as though outwitting me were too trifling an occurrence to even notice, at times has nearly driven me crazy—that, and that damned secret laughter I see in your eyes when we meet. Oh, I've waited a long time for my day—but now my day has come! And to think how nearly I missed it! I go back in an hour on the same train ...

— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx

... you had accepted it, you would have done me a real service. You showed your love by decorating me, by educating me, by giving me what I asked for, and what I did not. I have seen what depth of love there was in your eyes when you gazed at me. I have known the secret sigh of pain you suppressed in your love for me. You loved my body as if it were a flower of paradise. You loved my whole nature as if it had been given you by some ...

— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore

... what my husband knew also. Once when they were chatting together Herbert mentioned that the house like many other old mansions contained a secret chamber. He said: 'I can't tell you where it is, Withers; for although it is never likely to be used again, the knowledge of this hiding-place has been passed down from generation to generation as a family secret. I gave a solemn promise never to reveal it when I was first informed of its existence; ...

— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty

... Nature is generally purely vulgar, just as many women are vulgarly pure. There are only a few people in the world who dare to defy the grotesque code of rules that has been drawn up by that fashionable mother, Nature, and they defy—as many women drink, and many men are vicious—in secret, with the door locked and the key in their pockets. And what is life to them? They can always hear the footsteps of the detective ...

— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens

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