1. One who keeps, or is intrusted with, secrets. [R.]
2. A person employed to write orders, letters, dispatches, public or private papers, records, and the
like; an official scribe, amanuensis, or writer; one who attends to correspondence, and transacts other
business, for an association, a public body, or an individual.
That which is most of all profitable is acquaintance with the secretaries, and employed men of ambassadors.
Bacon. 3. An officer of state whose business is to superintend and manage the affairs of a particular department
of government, and who is usually a member of the cabinet or advisory council of the chief executive; as,
the secretary of state, who conducts the correspondence and attends to the relations of a government
with foreign courts; the secretary of the treasury, who manages the department of finance; the secretary
of war, etc.
4. A piece of furniture, with conveniences for writing and for the arrangement of papers; an escritoire.
5. (Zoöl.) The secretary bird.
Secretary bird. [So called in allusion to the tufts of feathers at the back of its head, which were fancifully
thought to resemble pens stuck behind the ear.] (Zoöl.) A large long-legged raptorial bird (Gypogeranus
serpentarius), native of South Africa, but now naturalized in the West Indies and some other tropical
countries. It has a powerful hooked beak, a crest of long feathers, and a long tail. It feeds upon reptiles
of various kinds, and is much prized on account of its habit of killing and devouring snakes of all kinds.
Called also serpent eater.
Syn. — See the Note under Clerk, n., 4.
Secretaryship
(Sec"re*ta*ry*ship), n. The office, or the term of office, of a secretary.
Secrete
(Se*crete") v. t. [imp. & p. p. Secreted; p. pr. & vb. n. Secreting.] [L. secretus separated,
secret, hidden, p. p. of secernere. See Secret, and cf. Discrete, Discreet.]
1. To deposit in a place of hiding; to hide; to conceal; as, to secrete stolen goods; to secrete one's self.
2. (Physiol.) To separate from the blood and elaborate by the process of secretion; to elaborate and
emit as a secretion. See Secretion.
Why one set of cells should secrete bile, another urea, and so on, we do not know.
Carpenter. Syn. — To conceal; hide. See Conceal.
Secretion
(Se*cre"tion) n. [L. secretio: cf. F. sécrétion.]
1. The act of secreting or concealing; as, the secretion of dutiable goods.
2. (Physiol.) The act of secreting; the process by which material is separated from the blood through
the agency of the cells of the various glands and elaborated by the cells into new substances so as
to form the various secretions, as the saliva, bile, and other digestive fluids. The process varies in the
different glands, and hence are formed the various secretions.
3. (Physiol.) Any substance or fluid secreted, or elaborated and emitted, as the gastric juice.
Secretist
(Se"cret*ist) n. A dealer in secrets. [Obs.]
Secretitious
(Se`cre*ti"tious) a. Parted by animal secretion; as, secretitious humors. Floyer.
