Secrecy

How to spell secrecy

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce secrecy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does secrecy mean?

1. nounThe condition of keeping something hidden or private from others.

Secrecy in a sentence

• The company guarded the new design in total secrecy.

• The merger talks were conducted in strict secrecy.

Where does secrecy come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin secretus, meaning 'set apart' or 'hidden', which was the past participle of secernere, 'to separate or sift away', built from se- 'apart' and cernere 'to sift, distinguish'. From the noun 'secret', English speakers formed 'secrecy' in the late 1300s by attaching the suffix -cy, which turns an adjective or noun into the name of a state or quality. The same secernere root quietly survives in words like 'discern' and 'secrete', all sharing the underlying idea of separating one thing from another. The spelling trap sits in the middle and end: the unstressed second vowel is a faint schwa that tempts writers toward 'secresy' or 'secercy', and the soft -cy ending is easy to mishear as -sy.

How the word is built

• secre- (from Latin secretus: set apart, hidden)
• -cy (noun suffix: state or quality)