Secretaire
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A kind of writing desk.
"The table was covered with a confusion of papers, books, pamphlets, all heaped upon one another pell-mell; and an open secretaire against the wall, was chokeful of the same litter; manuscripts, books in yellow-paper covers, books in smart bindings, books in shabby bindings, stuffed in anyhow, one on the top of the other, sideways, longways, endways; a row of pigeon-holes gorged with papers in the background."
- 2 a desk used for writing wordnet
Example
More examples"The table was covered with a confusion of papers, books, pamphlets, all heaped upon one another pell-mell; and an open secretaire against the wall, was chokeful of the same litter; manuscripts, books in yellow-paper covers, books in smart bindings, books in shabby bindings, stuffed in anyhow, one on the top of the other, sideways, longways, endways; a row of pigeon-holes gorged with papers in the background."
Etymology
From French secrétaire.
Related phrases
More for "secretaire"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.