Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To generate and separate (a substance) from cells or bodily fluids: secrete digestive juices.
- v. To conceal in a hiding place; cache. See Synonyms at hide1.
- v. To steal secretly; filch.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To make or keep secret; hide; conceal; remove from observation or the knowledge of others: as, to secrete stolen goods; to secrete one's self.
- In animal and vegetable physiology, to produce, prepare, or elaborate by the process of secretion—the product thus derived from the blood or sap being a substance not previously existing, the character of which depends upon the kind of organ which acts, or on the manner in which the secretory operation is carried on.
- Synonyms Hide, etc. See conceal, and list under hide.
- Separate; distinct.
- n. An obsolete form of secret.
Wiktionary
- adj. separated
- v. To extract a substance from blood, sap, or similar to produce and emit waste for excretion or for the fulfilling of a physiological function.
- v. figurative uses
- v. To conceal.
- v. To steal.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To deposit in a place of hiding; to hide; to conceal.
- v. To separate from the blood and elaborate by the process of secretion; to elaborate and emit as a secretion. See Secretion.
WordNet 3.0
- v. generate and separate from cells or bodily fluids
- v. place out of sight; keep secret
Etymologies
- Back-formation from secretion1.Probably alteration of obsolete secret, from secret.
Examples
“My secrete is not teh weapon, but the pratice, if you plan on making a Rockie Mtn Shot, you must be able to shot accurate to 400 yds if you gonna kill your game.”
“How long befor you shot the episode did you know were going to be killed off and did you have to keep it a secrete from the other cast members.”
“I often managed, in our short interviews, to give them notes which Madame Élisabeth had contrived to secrete from the searches of the municipals; these notes usually related to information desired by Their Majesties.”
“We had for food the crusts and fragments of bread and meat which we had each managed to secrete from the native Prince's table, and once or twice we had some game which the gentlemen managed to knock down or snare, but the danger of lighting”
“You may recall the secrete nuclear program Saddam had prior to the first Gulf War, the secret program Quadalfi in Libya gave up recently when he was afraid the U.S. might send our Army his way, and the secret network for nuclear technology centered around the group from Pakistan which was making Libya's program possible.”
“BS: It's more common to "secrete" things in one's orifices--although I hope one can keep that secret.”
“The subsequent "secrete" bombing of Cambodia along the so called "Ho Chi Minh Trail" and then a full scaled invasion of Cambodia lead to additional death and suffering of hundreds and thousands of innocent Khmer.”
“Then, it will "secrete" the unnecessary components out of the blood straight to the neuphron and lumen.”
“Instead, the authors suggest, the presence of a lung-cancer tumor may somehow block the body's uptake of, or desire for, nicotine; perhaps, they surmise, such tumors may secrete a chemical that makes that happen.”
The Washington Post: Could quitting smoking be a symptom of lung cancer?
“They have different kinds of cells—digestive cells, cells that secrete the spicules segments of the body skeleton of spongy proteinaceous material, and so on—which can communicate with one another and divide up the labor of life to work together as a single individual.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘secrete’.
-
GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
-
*e?e
Words whose last and third-to-last letters are both "e".
here, eke, were, complete, mete, replete, adhere, where, mere, sphere, austere, aesthete and 98 more...
-
Autantonyms
Words that are the opposites of themselves; each of the words in the list below has at least two definitions of which one is the complete contrary of the other.
fast, buckle, weather, out, weedy, overlook, cleave, let, clip, quite, sanction, bolt and 19 more...
oroboros Contronymic in the sense: hide vs. expose outwardly as a secretion. Jan 31, 2007