Word of the Day

: September 25, 2018

secrete

verb sih-KREET

What It Means

1 : to deposit or conceal in a hiding place

2 : to appropriate secretly : abstract

secrete in Context

The squirrel had secreted nuts all over the yard in preparation for winter, and as spring approached, more were still to be found.

"Then he allegedly sneaked the cash into a truck, moved the truck outside and covered the bag with his raincoat before secreting it away in his personal car." — Tina Moore et al., The New York Post, 27 July 2018

Did You Know?

If you guessed that the secret to the origins of secrete is the word secret, you are correct. Secrete developed in the mid-18th century as an alteration of a now obsolete verb secret. That verb had the meaning now carried by secrete and derived from the familiar noun secret ("something kept hidden or unexplained"). The noun, in turn, traces back to the Latin secretus, the past participle of the verb secernere, meaning "to separate" or "to distinguish." Incidentally, there is an earlier and distinct verb secrete with the more scientific meaning "to form and give off (a secretion)." That secrete is a back-formation from secretion, another word that can be traced back to secernere.