Secretary
name, noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A person who keeps records, takes notes and handles general clerical work.
"I have a personal secretary to help me organize my clients."
- 2 a desk used for writing wordnet
- 3 The head of a department of government. capitalized, often
"Well briefly, sir, I am the Permanent Under Secretary of State, known as the Permanent Secretary."
- 4 a person to whom a secret is entrusted wordnet
- 5 A managerial or leading position in certain non-profit organizations, such as political parties, trade unions, international organizations.
"Ban Ki-Moon was a secretary general of the United Nations."
Show 6 more definitions
- 6 an assistant who handles correspondence and clerical work for a boss or an organization wordnet
- 7 A type of desk, secretary desk; a secretaire. US
- 8 a person who is head of an administrative department of government wordnet
- 9 A secretary bird, a bird of the species Sagittarius serpentarius.
- 10 Someone entrusted with a secret; a confidant. obsolete
- 11 Someone employed as a scribe for personal correspondence. obsolete
""Do not give yourself any uneasiness about one so utterly unworthy of a thought! Sir George Kingston is without one grain of either honour or real feeling! The fact is, I have, for some months past, been his secretary, and wrote for him the letters which were sent you!""
- 1 To serve as a secretary of. transitive
- 1 A town in Maryland.
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"The records of our discussions are kept by the secretary."
Etymology
From Medieval Latin secrētārius (“one entrusted with secrets”), from Latin secrētus (“private, secret”), past participle of secernere (“to separate, set apart”), from se- (“apart”) + cernere (“to separate”).
Named by Lord Baltimore after his secretary.
Related phrases
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.