Secco

adj, noun

adj, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A work painted on dry plaster, as distinguished from a fresco.

    "The Roman frescoes are generally robust, but the Chinese and Egyptian seccos are inherently weak […]"

  2. 2
    Section commander, an infantry soldier responsible for about 8 other soldiers. Australia
Adjective
  1. 1
    dry not-comparable

    "Secco painting, or painting in secco, is painting on dry plaster, as distinguished from fresco painting, on wet or fresh plaster."

  2. 2
    dry – sparse accompaniment, staccato, without resonance not-comparable

Example

More examples

"Secco painting, or painting in secco, is painting on dry plaster, as distinguished from fresco painting, on wet or fresh plaster."

Etymology

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Italian secco (“dry”). Doublet of sec.

Etymology 2

Clipping of section commander + -o.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.