secret police

noun

: a police organization operating for the most part in secrecy and especially for the political purposes of its government often with terroristic methods

Examples of secret police in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Those of us who have lived in countries terrorized by a secret police force can’t shake a feeling of dreadful familiarity. —M. Gessen, Mercury News, 5 Apr. 2025

Russia’s secret police may have the dubious honor of having invented transnational repression: beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century, tsarist secret police infiltrated and harassed Russian political émigrés in France and Switzerland. —Andrei Soldatov, Foreign Affairs, 20 Mar. 2025

Ricin is still used by secret police agencies around the world. —Michael Loria, USA TODAY, 8 Mar. 2025

This followed a 2021 German conviction of a onetime member of Assad’s secret police, marking the first time a former Syrian official was found guilty for crimes against humanity. —Mona Yacoubian, Foreign Affairs, 25 Jan. 2022

Word History

First Known Use

1823, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for secret police

• conceptualise
• endonuclease
• generalise
• liberalise
• ribonuclease
• vietnamese
• altarpiece
• centerpiece
• frontispiece
• mantelpiece
• masterpiece
• pilates

Kids Definition

secret police

noun

: a police organization operating mostly in secrecy and especially for the political purposes of its government and often using methods of terrorists