private

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“
He travelled by tube or omnibus from the Bayswater Road, where he lived what he described as his private life.

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Definitions (68)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (19)

  1. adjective Secluded from the sight, presence, or intrusion of others: a private hideaway.
  2. adjective Designed or intended for one's exclusive use: a private room.
  3. adjective Of or confined to the individual; personal: a private joke; private opinions.
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Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (42)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

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Examples (50)

  • What you just said As far as I'm concerned, exposing your soul in public is just as embarrassing as showing what they call your private parts. —  EQMM,January2006
  • BEIJING -- Bank of China Ltd. dropped its plan to buy a 20\% stake in French private bank Cie. —  WSJ.com: What's News US
  • A report said the bank has extended the deadline to March 31 to complete a 20 pct stake purchase in French private bank La Compagnie Financiere Edmond de Rothschild. —  Top Stories - Google News
  • Most of the decline in Japanese private spending and borrowing in the 1990s was, argues Mr Koo, due not to the state of the banks, but to that of their borrowers. —  The Economist: Correspondent's diary
  • Catharine MacKinnon maintains that "the private is a sphere of battery, marital rape and women's exploited labor." —  Conservapedia - Recent changes [en]
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Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English privat, from Latin prīvātus, not in public life, past participle of prīvāre, to release, deprive, from prīvus, single, alone; see per1 in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. = French privé = Spanish Portuguese privado = Italian privato = Dutch privaat = G. Swedish Danish privat, private, from Latin privatus, apart from what is public, pertaining to an individual, private, past participle of privare, separate, deprive, release, from privus, single, every, one's own, private, prob. for orig. *praivus, from prai, older form of præ, before: see pre-. Cf. privy. Hence also ult. deprive.
  2. from Latin privatus, past participle of privare, strip, deprive: see private, adjective Cf. prive.
 

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/ˈpraɪvət/
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