secrecy

Alteration (on model of primacy, etc) of Late Middle English secretee, from Old French secré.

• IPA^(key): /ˈsiːkɹəsi/

• Audio (US)

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secrecy (countable and uncountable, plural secrecies)

1. Concealment; the condition of being secret or hidden.

   I was sworn to secrecy.

   • 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter II, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, […]. Even such a boat as the Mount Vernon offered a total deck space so cramped as to leave secrecy or privacy well out of the question, even had the motley and democratic assemblage of passengers been disposed to accord either.

   • 2022 January 12, Chris Hegg, “The secret railway in the woods”, in RAIL, number 948, page 34:

     I suspect that this large and complex military railway system, shrouded in official secrecy for most of its operational life, remains unknown to many people.

2. The habit of keeping secrets.

• dern (obsolete)

• professional secrecy
• secrecy jurisdiction

• secretiveness

• Creecys