secret

noun

1. (countable)A piece of knowledge that is hidden and intended to be kept hidden.

   “"Can you keep a secret?" "Yes." "So can I."”

   “To tell our own secrets is generally folly, but that folly is without guilt; to communicate those with which we are intrusted is always treachery”

   “Well, mistress, I am sorry this is a matter I cannot aid you in—it goes against my conscience, and it is an affair above my condition, and beyond my management;—but I will keep your secret.”

   “Barla Von: Most people think I deal in finances, but my real currency is knowledge. I trade information and it has made me very wealthy. Barla Von: But the Shadow Broker is the true master. Every day, he buys and sells secrets that could topple governments, always giving them to the highest bidder.”

   “Now we are liberal with our innermost secrets, spraying them into the public ether with a generosity our forebears could not have imagined. Where we once sent love letters in a sealed envelope, or stuck photographs of our children in a family album, now such private material is despatched to servers and clouds operated by people we don't know and will never meet.”

2. (countable, uncountable)The key or principle by which something is made clear; the knack.

   “The secret to a long-lasting marriage is compromise.”

3. (countable, uncountable)Something not understood or known.

   “Thou knewſt by name, and all th' ethereal powers, / All ſecrets of the deep, all Natures works,”

4. (uncountable)Private seclusion.

   “The work was done in secret, so that nobody could object.”

5. (archaic, countable, in-plural, uncountable)The genital organs.
6. (countable, historical, uncountable)A form of steel skullcap.
7. (countable, in-plural, often, uncountable)Any prayer spoken inaudibly and not aloud; especially, one of the prayers in the Tridentine Mass, immediately following the "orate, fratres", said inaudibly by the celebrant.

verb

1. (rare, transitive)To make or keep secret.

   “… she would unfold the silk, press it with a smooth wooden block that she'd heated in the oven, and then once more secret it away.”

   “1986, InfoWorld, InfoWorld Media Group, Inc. Diskless workstations … make it difficult for individuals to copy information … onto a diskette and secret it away.”

   “To prevent the elixir from reaching mankind and thereby upsetting the balance of the universe, two gods secret it away.”

2. (rare, transitive)To hide secretly.

adj

1. Being or kept hidden.

   “We went down a secret passage.”

   “The ſecret things belong unto the Lord our God; but thoſe things which are reuealed belong unto us, and to our children for euer, that wee may doe all the words of this Law.”

   “The original family who had begun to build a palace to outrival Nonesuch had died out before they had put up little more than the gateway, so that the actual structure which had come down to posterity retained the secret magic of a promise rather than the overpowering splendour of a great architectural achievement.”

2. (obsolete)Withdrawn from general intercourse or notice; in retirement or secrecy; secluded.

   “Sing Heav'nly Muſe, that on the secret top / Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didſt inſpire / That Shepherd, who firſt taught the choſen Seed, / In the Beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth / Roſe out of Chaos: [...]”

   “secret in her sapphire cell”

   “"He was a secret man, Alexander—a secret, silent man," he continued.”

3. (obsolete)Faithful to a secret; not inclined to divulge or betray confidence; secretive, separate, apart.

   “What neede we any ſpurre, but our owne cauſe / To pricke vs to redreſſe? What other Bond / Than ſecret Romans, that haue ſpoke the Word, / And will not palter?”

4. (obsolete)Separate; distinct.

   “They suppose two other divine hypostases superior thereunto, which were perfectly secret from matter.”