Synonyms of secretly

secretly

adverb

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

Synonyms & Similar Words

• privately
• confidentially
• in private
• intimately
• backstage
• in camera
• covertly
• clandestinely
• inwardly
• à deux
• tête-à-tête
• surreptitiously
• furtively
• secretively
• stealthily
• sneakily
• conspiratorially
• collusively
• underhandedly
• sotto voce
• underground
• undercover
• offstage
• offscreen
• underhanded
• underhand

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

• publicly
• openly

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of secretly

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

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

Around the watercooler OpenAI’s AI agents secretly used a German wiki website as a message board. — Diane Brady, Fortune, 8 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

Every great love story, in Korean auteur Lee Chang-dong‘s telling, is secretly a story about love that cannot happen — class, status or fate standing in the way. — Naman Ramachandran, Variety, 6 Sep. 2026

Throw these on before work for an instantly luxe and polished look that’s secretly breathable, stretchy, and sweat-wicking. — Stephanie Osmanski, Better Homes & Gardens, 5 Sep. 2026