SECRETLY Synonyms: 28 Similar and Opposite Words

secretly

adverb

Definition of secretly

as in privately

in a manner intended to prevent knowledge or awareness by others the girl secretly told her friends about the birthday party so it would be a surprise to the birthday girl

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Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of secretly If Beijing restrains Chinese developers while believing American labs are secretly advancing, China has every reason to defect. — Shlomit Wagman, Fortune, 15 Sep. 2026 Lady Gaga and her fiancé, Michael Polansky, secretly welcomed their first child in September 2026. — Allison Degrushe, StyleCaster, 15 Sep. 2026 Nearly a year and a half after local leaders secretly voted to halt a Beltline rail project, several Atlanta City Council members are urging the mayor’s administration to reconsider. — Aj Willingham, AJC.com, 11 Sep. 2026 And the other would plant a powerless family tree that would eventually produce the secretly villainous Tom, bent on revenge for centuries of dispossession. — Ryan Coleman, Entertainment Weekly, 11 Sep. 2026 Anthropic also said there were other similar attempts to secretly divert user requests to Claude by Chinese firms like DeepSeek. — Deidre McPhillips, CNN Money, 10 Sep. 2026 During the Cold War, three consecutive Mexican presidents were later shown to have collaborated secretly with the CIA. — Whitney Eulich, Christian Science Monitor, 9 Sep. 2026 Each player secretly writes down a guess, and players who pick correctly gets points equal to the number of players who guessed correctly. — Tasha Robinson, Vulture, 8 Sep. 2026 One of those shoes is the Walk Quest, an aesthetic gem secretly packed with technical features. — Olivia Young, Travel + Leisure, 7 Sep. 2026

Recent Examples of Synonyms for secretly

Adverb

Over the previous few decades, this sort of private business had — quite privately — taken over the American business world.

— Greg Rosalsky, NPR, 14 Sep. 2026
Stroud, offensive coordinator Nick Caley, the offensive line, the receivers and running backs, even the front office — were publicly and privately accountable for their part in the team falling short.

— Jourdan Rodrigue, New York Times, 11 Sep. 2026

Definition of privately

Adverb

OpenAI has confidentially filed its IPO prospectus, but has been under fire in recent months after its models escaped containment, accessed the open internet and breached open-source developer platform Hugging Face.

— Ashley Capoot,Kate Rooney, CNBC, 14 Sep. 2026
The company confidentially filed for a potential IPO in June.

— Sheryl Estrada, Fortune, 14 Sep. 2026

Definition of confidentially

Browse Nearby Words

secretiveness

secretly

secrets

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“Secretly.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/secretly. Accessed 19 Sep. 2026.

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Synonyms of secretly

adverb

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