Secret

How to spell secret

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce secret

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does secret mean?

1. adjectiveKept hidden or not meant to be known by others.
2. nounA piece of information kept hidden from others.

Secret in a sentence

• adjective

  The company kept the new design secret until launch day.

• noun

  He promised never to reveal the family secret.

• adjective

  She stored the documents in a secret compartment of the desk.

• noun

  Keeping the surprise party a secret proved difficult.

Where does secret come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word goes back to the Latin secretus, the past participle of secernere, meaning 'to set apart' or 'to separate out'. That verb joined the prefix se-, meaning 'apart', with cernere, meaning 'to sift' or 'to separate', so something secret was literally something kept apart from general view. English took it in during the 1300s by way of Old French, where the spelling and meaning were already settled as 'hidden' or 'concealed'. The same cernere root sifts through a surprising family of English words, including 'discern', 'discreet', and 'secrete'. Because the unstressed second syllable softens to a faint schwa in speech, writers sometimes hesitate over the final '-et', but the spelling has stayed remarkably stable since the word entered English.

How the word is built

• se- (apart)
• cret (from cernere: to separate, sift)