secrecy

English

Etymology

Alteration (on model of primacy, etc) of Late Middle English secretee, from Old French secré.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsiːkɹəsi/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

secrecy (countable and uncountable, plural secrecies)

1. Concealment; the condition of being secret or hidden.

   I was sworn to secrecy.

   • 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter II, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, […]. Even such a boat as the Mount Vernon offered a total deck space so cramped as to leave secrecy or privacy well out of the question, even had the motley and democratic assemblage of passengers been disposed to accord either.

   • 2022 January 12, Chris Hegg, “The secret railway in the woods”, in RAIL, number 948, page 34:

     I suspect that this large and complex military railway system, shrouded in official secrecy for most of its operational life, remains unknown to many people.

2. The habit of keeping secrets.

Synonyms

• dern (obsolete)

Derived terms

• professional secrecy
• secrecy jurisdiction

Related terms

• secretiveness

Translations

concealment

• Afrikaans: geheimhouding
• Arabic: سِرِّيَّة f (sirriyya)
• Bulgarian: тайна (bg) f (tajna)
• Chinese: 秘密 (zh) (mìmì)
• Czech: utajení n
• Dutch: geheimhouding (nl) f
• French: secret (fr) m
• German: Geheimhaltung (de) f
• Gothic: 𐌰𐌽𐌰𐌻𐌰𐌿𐌲𐌽𐌴𐌹 f (analaugnei)
• Greek: μυστικότητα (el) f (mystikótita), εχεμύθεια (el) f (echemýtheia)
• Hindi: गोपनीयता f (gopnīytā)
• Indonesian: kerahasiaan (id)
• Irish: rúndacht f
• Italian: segretezza (it) f, riserbo (it) m
• Japanese: 秘密 (ja) (himitsu)
• Korean: 기밀 (ko) (gimil)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: hemmelighet (no) m or f

• Portuguese: sigilo (pt) m
• Romanian: secretism n, secretețe f
• Russian: засекреченность (ru) f (zasekrečennostʹ)
• Sanskrit: रहस् (sa) n (rahas)
• Spanish: secreto (es) m, sigilo (es) m
• Swahili: siri (sw)
• Telugu: దాపరికం (te) (dāparikaṁ)
• Turkish: gizli tutma, sır tutma, (law) mahremiyet (tr)

habit of keeping secrets

• Bulgarian: потайност (bg) f (potajnost)
• Catalan: secretisme m
• French: secrétisme (fr) m
• Galician: secretismo m
• German: Geheimniskrämerei (de) f, Geheimnistuerei (de) f
• Portuguese: secretismo m
• Spanish: secretismo (es) m

Anagrams

• Creecys