Secretive

How to spell secretive

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce secretive

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does secretive mean?

1. adjectiveInclined to conceal one's thoughts, plans, or actions from others.

Secretive in a sentence

• He was unusually secretive about his new business venture.

• The company stayed secretive about its upcoming product until the launch date.

Where does secretive come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word builds on 'secret', which English took from Old French 'secret' in the 1300s, itself from the Latin 'secretus', meaning 'set apart' or 'hidden away'. That Latin form was the past participle of 'secernere', 'to separate' or 'to sift apart', made from 'se-' (apart) and 'cernere' (to sift or distinguish). Something secret was therefore literally something kept separate from common view. The adjective 'secretive' was assembled later, around the early 1800s, by adding the suffix '-ive' (meaning 'tending to') to give the sense of a person inclined to conceal things. The same 'cernere' root for sifting and distinguishing also survives in words such as 'discern' and 'certain', and the single 't' in the middle of 'secret' is the spelling point worth holding onto, since there is no doubled letter to add.

How the word is built

• secret (from Latin secretus: set apart, hidden)
• -ive (adjective suffix: tending to)