How to Use open secret in a Sentence

open secret

noun
  • It's an open secret that he's been cheating on his wife.
  • The fate of all those tapes has been an open secret for years.
    New York Times, 11 June 2019
  • The sonnets are an open secret, at which the wife scoffs.
    Lawrence Jackson, Harper's Magazine, 10 July 2023
  • The open secret is that the 20-year-old ain’t that much of a cowboy to begin with.
    Brian Josephs, EW.com, 21 June 2019
  • One of the open secrets of live stand-up is that the most famous names are rarely the funniest ones on the bill.
    Jason Zinoman, New York Times, 2 July 2018
  • Look, this story was a big open secret for a very, very long time.
    Norman Vanamee, Town & Country, 22 July 2021
  • Was the Lindsay Lohan cameo an open secret amongst the cast?
    Brian Davids, The Hollywood Reporter, 22 Jan. 2024
  • That’s because the plot’s biggest spoiler leaked over and over to the point where it’s all an open secret.
    Chris Smith, BGR, 2 Nov. 2021
  • The nature of the pro se committee was an open secret at the courthouse.
    Anat Rubin, ProPublica, 4 Nov. 2023
  • Kenny’s abuse of Erin was an open secret in the Ross family.
    Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 23 May 2021
  • The lawsuit claims the abuse of young athletes was known and tolerated for years as an 'open secret' in the sport.
    Joe Mutascio, The Indianapolis Star, 20 June 2024
  • In Berlin, the Ökohaus project remains something of an open secret.
    Megan O’Grady, New York Times, 10 Nov. 2020
  • For much of the 20th century, joke stealing was an open secret.
    Eric Spitznagel, The Hollywood Reporter, 11 Jan. 2024
  • The illegitimacy of Rhaenyra's sons seems to be an open secret in the Red Keep.
    Chelsey Sanchez, Harper's BAZAAR, 26 Sep. 2022
  • The steady stream of people walking out with a tiny bag of Fritos and giant smiles on their faces was an open secret in the neighborhood.
    Chris Goldstein, Philly.com, 8 Sep. 2017
  • The friends-and-family line for Pastis and Balthazar is an open secret.
    Helen Rosner, The New Yorker, 19 May 2021
  • Fiercely denied by the Houthis, the existence of child soldiers in Yemen is an open secret.
    TIME.com, 19 Dec. 2017
  • In some ways, this has been the biggest open secret in digital media.
    Brian Stelter, CNN, 28 Sep. 2021
  • The suggestion: the affair was an open secret, not a motive for murder.
    Debora Patta, CBS News, 2 July 2023
  • But, for now, the most important thing to take away is this: The trouble playing out now is a story years in the making—and the outcome of an open secret.
    Byallie Garfinkle, Fortune, 5 July 2024
  • One guesses that Keynes’s predatory ways with younger males was an open secret.
    John Tamny, Forbes, 28 Dec. 2022
  • The role of public funding in drug development has been an open secret for decades.
    Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 14 Oct. 2021
  • The area had an open secret then: It was filled with stations on the Underground Railroad for slaves trying to reach freedom.
    Dan Sewell, Star Tribune, 10 Oct. 2020
  • The dark history of Bisbee was largely an open secret for decades in the funky old copper town just seven miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border.
    Washington Post, 14 July 2019
  • The fact that Cregger had a new project was an open secret, but getting one’s hands on the new material was anything but easy.
    Borys Kit, The Hollywood Reporter, 25 Jan. 2023
  • Talib, the member of the Newark squad, recalled that their identities became an open secret in the Nation.
    Les Payne, The New Yorker, 27 Aug. 2020
  • This is what his version of that dully familiar standby, the open secret, looked like.
    Megan Garber, The Atlantic, 15 Aug. 2019
  • The hypocrisy of Russian officials and their families enjoying the largesse of the West has been an open secret in Russia for years.
    CNN, 12 Apr. 2022
  • There will very likely be more allegations in the months to come, more open secrets stripped of their secrecy.
    Megan Garber, The Atlantic, 2 Nov. 2017
  • The blatant pandering and lack of seriousness of this suggestion was an open secret in South Korea.
    Robert E. Kelly, Foreign Affairs, 22 Feb. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'open secret.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: