Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Having a tendency to keep one's thoughts or activities unknown to others.
- adjective Characterized by or done in secrecy.
- adjective Suggestive of the keeping of secrets.
- adjective Tending to remain concealed. Used of animals.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Tending to secrete or keep secret; given to secrecy or concealment; reticent or reserved concerning one's own or another's affairs.
- Causing or promoting secretion.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Tending to secrete, or to keep secret or private.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Having an
inclination tosecrecy .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective inclined to secrecy or reticence about divulging information
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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The congressman from Zulia state criticized what he called the "secretive" nature of the president's deliberation over the measure.
Venezuela Plans to Move Reserve Funds José de Córdoba 2011
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For weeks, leading Democrats have castigated pro-Republican special interest groups involved in the current election campaign for what they describe as secretive fundraising practices.
Reuters: Top News Mark Hosenball 2010
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Is a country that has long been secretive is having those secrets revealed by social networks?
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Rep. Mike Ross, who flip-flopped on the public option and has authored an amendment that seems like a copycat of Max Baucus's no-good, terribly bad bill, has been in secretive talks with a Republican, Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA), for weeks.
Archive 2009-09-01 2009
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Oh well, so much said about that and yet I remain secretive about the specifics.
Archive 2009-11-01 2009
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Oh well, so much said about that and yet I remain secretive about the specifics.
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We could say secretive is better, but realistically for large applications you have to justify your every-move – for Apple and other companies it might happen within their own compounds, it still happends.
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Part of what drives this notion of Putin as so secretive is that Yeltsin seemed to be such an accessible figure, particularly to the West.
Parsing Putin 2005
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Part of what drives this notion of Putin as so secretive is that Yeltsin seemed to be such an accessible figure, particularly to the West.
Parsing Putin 2005
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Part of what drives this notion of Putin as so secretive is that Yeltsin seemed to be such an accessible figure, particularly to the West.
Parsing Putin 2005
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